
Glass 



Book 



"PYRI 



ceoRGe Dewey 

i ,*% ADMIRAL 







Jv*»if 



B_y FRGD6RICK PALi^GR 



GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL 



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ADMIRAL 1>I AVI V 

'.' . ' King of Italy. 



George Dewey, Admiral 

Impressions of Dewey and 
the Olympia on their 
Homeward Pro- 
gress from 
Manila 

By 

Frederick Palmer 



ILLUSTRATED 




New York 

Doubleday & McClure Co. 

1899 









Copyright, 1899, by 
Frederick Palmer. 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED 




OPY, 






H AlL 



PREFACE. nr~ 

These disconnected letters, written in haste for 
the papers, are sufficient, when put between covers, 
to make what is technically known as a book. They 
will serve their purpose if they bring my country- 
men near to a great and lovable man. 

Frederick Palmer. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Page 

Preface m 

CHAPTER I. 
Manila l 

CHAPTER II. 
Hong Kong 37 

CHAPTER III. 
Hong Kong 5 s 

CHAPTER IV. 
Singapore 73 

CHAPTER V. 
Colombo 9 2 

CHAPTER VI. 
Trieste x T 5 

CHAPTER VII. 

Naples J 33 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Naples *43 

CHAPTER IX. 
Leghorn 1 5 2 

CHAPTER X. 
Leghorn 163 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XL 
Leghorn 174 

CHAPTER XII. 

Nice 181 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Nice 188 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Gibraltar 210 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 

Admiral George Dewey Frontispiece 

Olympia Weighing Anchor at Manila 2 

Characteristic Attitudes of the Admiral 26 

On the Way to Government House, Singapore, 81 

Cingalese Boatmen 81 

Admiral Dewey in Citizen's Dress at Trieste. . 116 

Admiral Dewey and His Pet Dog "Bob" 116 

Nat Phillips, Fifteen Years in the Navy 140 

Jack Purdy, Father of the Forecastle 140 

Admiral Dewey's Favorite Picture of Himself, 165 
Marines of the Olympia Drilling at Ville- 

f ranche for the New York Parade 206 



CHAPTER I. 

MANILA. 

As punctiliously as it was begun, the Admiral's 
career in Manila Bay came to an end. The Olympia 
was announced to depart at four o'clock yesterday 
afternoon. She went at four. Not at two or three 
minutes after, but just on the tick of the hour her 
screw began to turn. Such is the law and doctrine 
of the Asiatic Squadron, and has been since George 
Dewey took command. We watched her disappear 
on the horizon, and we were lonely. 

To every man on sea or shore, serving or 
following in the footsteps of the servants of the 
United States of America, his going was more 
or less felt in the sense of a personal bereave- 
ment. The Kansas men felt just as they did when 
they heard of their Colonel's promotion. They were 
glad to see Funston a Brigadier; he ought to be 
one. Nevertheless, at the thought that he would nev- 
er lead them in a charge again, something caught 
in their throats. We knew that the Admiral ought 
to go and he wanted to go. Thirteen months on 



GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

board a man-of-war in the Bay is enough for any 
man of sixty-one years to endure at a stretch. 

When the Admiral came, there was only one 
American in Manila, withered old Mr. Collins, who 
had drifted into the Philippines thirty years before 
and. falling a victim to Spanish siestas, had never 
had the luck to drift out again. Even he was not 
exactly In Manila. Spanish friends had been kind 
enough to explain the advantages to be enjoyed by 
one in his position on a neutral ship and he took 
their advice. When the Admiral came the Ameri- 
can flag had never been seen in Manila, except 
living over the Consulate. American cruisers were 
unknown to the Bay of Manila. The people at home 
recalled the Philippines as a point in their school 
graphies. Behold, one morning the Bay was 
ours. Our men cleaned their guns, felt of them- 
selves and found everybody whole, except one sea- 
man on the Baltimore. Then they looked toward 
the beach, where lay hulks of twisted steel which 
once floated, and they knew that they had not been 
dreaming while they were at regular target practice. 

"It's not a fight," said the Junior Mess and the 
Wardroom. "It's just a little side show. Maybe 
Sampson has met Cervera and Cervera has suffered 
the same fate as Montojo. If so, where do we 



MANILA. 3 

come in ? As we read our maps, the North Atlantic 
is the cockpit of the war." 

"Another thing," said the doctors, most of whom 
had yet to bandage the first wound. "The Admiral 
does things too well. He did this too well to get 
much credit for it. If we had had a few men killed 
we might say that we had been in a battle." 

"What I can't savey," said the veteran Jack 
Purdy, "is why in damnation the Spaniards didn't 
use blank charges and save expense." 

The Admiral dropped a remark on the same 
subject as he looked towards the remains of the 
enemy on the second of May. 

"They're going to make a great deal of this at 
home," he said. "An American fleet winning a 
battle in this far off harbor against a squadron of 
Spain has too much of the element of romance in it 
to be readily forgotten." 

Bye and bye when the 'Frisco papers of the first 
week in May arrived, the Admiral met with just as 
great a surprise as his officers. He could not under- 
stand why they made so much of the part which 
he had played. Then it was time to recall the doc- 
tor's remark about the Admiral's weakness for doing 
things easily and thereby escaping public attention. 

"It was a simple proposition of running the mines 



4 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

at the entrance to the bay and then of facing the 
enemy." the Admiral has said more than once. 
"The credit of what was accomplished belongs to 
service. It was a test of the merit of our guns, 
our men and onr officers against theirs. The strat- 
egj .»f it was to keep moving while we fired so as 
to make as difficult a mark as possible. That we 
did keep moving alone explains our freedom from 
injury. Otherwise I should regard it as nothing 
short of a miracle that we did not have a man killed." 

"We do not count," they say in the wardroom and 
the junior mess — and the strategists of the forecastle 
agree. "Those who know how the Admiral organ- 
ized the squadron before we started, how he foresaw 
au>\ provided for all possible contingencies, add their 
testimony to the appreciation of the public of the 
boldness of his conception and the manner in which 
lie carried it out. The Admiral won the battle of 
Manila Bay." 

We ashore are here because of this weak- 
ness of his for doing things easily. We regard 
ourselves as a part of his family. By ' ive- 
1 mean a most picturesque little world ; a 
v rtunteer army which came with touch-and- 
go haste, forgetting its engineers, to finish 
what he had begun; energetic American officers in 



MANILA. 5 

the palaces of the old city where only Spanish uni- 
forms had been seen for two centuries; strapping- 
soldiers in blue shirts and kharkee breeches and 
campaign hats in the place of little black men in 
straw hats and bed-ticking coats and breeches ; bang 
and rattle and rush in the illy-paved streets where 
the Filipino coachmen, rulers rather than ruled, 
drive lean ponies hitched to their rickety caromat- 
tas by harnesses of rope, and are catching some of 
the American contagion of dollars; newspapers 
with headlines and news instead of feuilletons; cafes 
turned into bars and selling beers instead of ver- 
mouth and water ; big trains of mules replacing the 
plodding water buffalo and his cumbrous cart in 
carrying supplies to the front ; Spanish hotels passed 
into American hands crying to the States for articles 
of sanitation by the first steamer, and hotels not yet 
in American hands learning to grill beefsteak rather 
than to boil it in grease and pepper ; every American 
learning enough Spanish to say "Pronto," which is 
"hurry," and shopkeepers giving up their siestas for 
the love of our gold eagles; the native population 
learning to drink beer and that it is not civilized to 
go naked; officers' wives crying for American 
stoves and trying to establish themselves in what 
is to be their home for three years; fresh troops 



6 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

coming in by transports, and dark and gesticulatory 
remnants of Spanish officers, before returning tc 
Spain, saying "Adios! Adios! Adios!" and shed- 
ding many tears in the little cafes of the old city 
which were soon to be entirely deserted; withal, 
thirty thousand men overwhelmingly occupied in 
trying to put down a rebellion which might never 
have taken place if the reins over Aguinaldo had 
remained in the Admiral's hands. 

The turmoil on land has no counterpart in the 
Bay, where the members of the squadron are as 
quiet as so many forts. Their numbers are now and 
then diminished or increased by the departure of 
one going to perform, or the arrival of one which 
has been performing, some duty in connection with 
the patrolling of the coast of Luzon for filibusters 
and the maintaining of the status quo in the Vis- 
ayas. Only the Olympia never left her post 
The flagship of the squadron must remain 
in one place as the Admiral's headquar- 
ters. Her officers and crew envied the of- 
ficers and crew of the Monadnock poking her 
nose close up to the insurgent trenches near the 
beach and making the little brown men think that 
thr end of the world had come; they envied the 
officers and crew of any ship that had any action. 



MANILA. 7 

Of all things which the seaman, Jacky or Admiral, 
loathes, it is to be neither at sea nor ashore ; to be 
anchored in sight of both with no leave and monot- 
onous daily routine. Add to this the heat of the 
boilers under a tropical sun in the Bay of Manila 
and you have something which is akin to perdition. 
But the army envied the navy and the navy envied 
the army, with nothing to choose between them. 

"When I go to war again," said a private of the 
South Dakotas, "I'll do my fighting for my country 
on the sea. There is just one scrap. You go up or 
you go down. Then, it's all over. If you are up you 
have your bed and grub and clean dicky the same as 
ever. You don't have to sleep on the ground and 
chase yellowbacks through salt marshes. The ves- 
sel does the marching for you." 

"Why don't they have a landing party?" Jacky 
is forever asking. "Do those soldier men think we 
can't walk and shoot?" 

For the very good reason that a liberty party 
would have meant the number of its members on 
the firing line, no shore leaves have been granted. 
Jacky was glad when the fighting got so far away 
from the city that he could not hear the volleys and 
be continually reminded of the fun he was missing. 
[He did not grumble a word against the Admiral. 



8 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

It is an article of his creed that the Admiral can do 
no wrong. He blamed the army, or an indefinite 
somebody. It is not unlikely that a week with Mc- 
Arthur's Division would cure him of his enthusiasm 
and he would be as glad to return to the ship as he is 
to go to sea again after he has spent all his money 
in anv port, and drunk too deep of its delights. As 
it is, he has escaped the illness which became the 
lot of the army. The health of the Asiatic Squadron 
is almost as good as that of the North Atlantic in 
time of peace. 

In crossing the open space of promenade, park 
and common called the Luneta which lies between 
the residential suburb of Malate and the city proper, 
we could always see the Olympia lying at anchor in 
the same position that she had occupied for month 
on month. She moved with the tide, of course. We 
landlubbers did not notice that, because from such a 
distance we could not tell bow from stern and the 
Admiral's flag was the size of a postage stamp. 
She was sombre in her leaden war color in the light 
of the early morning, the color of the sea by day 
(except for her white awnings which were dazzl- 
ing), and noble and beautiful in the sunsets which 
surpass sunsets of the temperate zone as the palm 



MANILA. 



surpasses the little fir tree struggling for life on 
the limit of the timber line in the Rockies. 

She was good to look upon, whether we looked 
morning, noon, or night. She was the bulwark 
which stood between us and our enemies on the sea. 
The Oregon, powerful, ugly and scowling, like a 
bull dog with his feet wide apart, was only a new- 
comer. Tramp ships and passenger steamers might 
struggle for a new footing in the new' world we had 
made, transports and cruisers might come and go. 
one regiment after another might recruit from the 
voyage from 'Frisco on the common of the Luneta, 
but Sphinx-like, immovable, the Olympia always 
surveyed us. She had become an institution like the 
Cathedral and the Bridge of Spain. The Admiral 
was the beginning of all things. 

In the lulls between the land engagements with 
the Filipinos, the rumor-makers, who always follow 
an army because it is such a matter-of-fact organi- 
zation, I suppose, improved their time by announc- 
ing the date of the Admiral's immediate departure. 
To disbelieve the rumor-makers is a part of your 
daily duty. All they live for, I think, is to make 
newspaper correspondents get out of bed and in- 
vestigate their stories. 

Perforce, there must come a time when this rumor 



IO GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

would be true, and it came last week. We knew that 
the Admiral would not be slow to say the word once 
the matter was settled. His desire to return as soon 
as he felt his presence no longer necessary was, I 
have said, an open secret. His presence had not 
been necessary for two months, according to his 
<>wn estimate. He would have gone before this if 
both he and Secretary Long had not been so polite. 
The Secretary desired that the Admiral should do as 
he pleased and to make the way easy for him to do 
as he pleased. The Admiral wrote to him saying 
that at the Secretary's pleasure the Olympia was 
ready to return. He seems to be in no hurry, the 
Secretary thought, and probably he thinks his pres- 
ence in Manila is still necessary. So, instead of 
cabling his reply, as the Admiral rather expected he 
would, he sent it by mail. Therefore, the Admiral 
had to wait for the letter which bade him lift an- 
chor whenever he chose. 

One of the most envied men on the Olympia, one 
of the two mail orderlies, who came ashore every 
day. was the first to spread the news. 

"The Admiral is going home," he said as he 
stepped off the launch one morning, "and he's going 
pretty soon." 

"It's true," was the confirmation from the office 



MANILA. II 

of the Captain of the Port, "and they are already 
asking him by cable to attend a hundred dollar a 
plate banquet and sit for his picture. They have 
been looking for him for a year and now they've got 
him." 

For the first time in thirteen months the sailors 
dared to speak of "home" without expecting some- 
thing to rise up from the forecastle deck and strike 
them. The good word was passed to them at once. 
It was bound to occur to the thoughtful Admiral 
how glad they would be to hear it. Even then they 
did not know it more than forty-eight hours before 
it had traveled the length of the lines on land. 

"Hong Kong is the first port," said Purdy, the 
father of the forecastle, with great gravity, "and I 
guess we'll make Hong Kong think we've got some 
money to spend." 

"Six months' pay and shore leave," put in "Jim" 
Johnson, the coxswain of the launch, who would 
be father of the forecastle if Purdy wasn't older 
than he and hadn't served in the Mexican War as 
well as the Civil. "Oh, Ombray, I'll stretch fore and 
aft on the best bed in the best hotel. I'll eat a table 
dotey dinner with all the fixings, and I'll drink just 
enough to become a modest sailor man. All you 
kiddies follow me and I'll teach you how to be young 



12 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

again. I'm damned if I won't be condescending 
enough to speak to a marine on the street. Oh, Om- 
bray, I'm full of the milk of human kindness. It's a 
good world — a world that makes you keep your 
money for six months so you can be six times six 
as happy when you get a chance to spend it." 

"We are ready to give you the biggest reception 
in our power, and a little bigger one," was the es- 
sence of the cables of the mayors of most of the 
towns between 'Frisco and New York. "We offer 
you a special train for any place at any time," was 
the word of the railroad companies. San Francisco 
expected him for the Fourth of July. After it was 
learned that he was going by the way of Suez, New 
York expected him for theFourth. Alas ! for plans 
made without his connivance. The Admiral is not 
to step foot on his native soil until October. Why 
so long and why Suez ? some people wonder. Isn't 
the Pacific cooler than the Asiatic seas at this time 
of year? it is asked. For one little thing, the trip 
across the continent would kill the Admiral and 
some of his officers. If he hurried to New York by 
way of Suez, he would arrive in the hot weather, 
with officers and men tired out by the labors of the 
voyage. At this season the monsoon is blowing 
from i he Northwest. This makes a breeze for any 



MANILA. 13 

vessel going in that direction and leaves one going 
in the opposite direction in a dead calm. 

"These fine fellows," the Admiral said, with an in- 
clination of his head toward a group of Jackies. 
"who have been as patient as they are brave, need a 
rest at once. They need not wait for it until they 
reach home. They shall have it on the way — ten 
knots an hour and a long halt wherever we stop for 
coal, particularly for the sake of the fire crew. The 
Mediterranean is an old stamping ground of mine, 
though scarcely any of my officers have been there. 
I know how they will enjoy it. The balmy air of 
the Mediterranean is the very thing to bring back 
their strength. It may seem a little warm in August 
to people from the North, but it will be cool to us 
who have had our blood thinned by the tropics." 

Curiosity as to the ports the Admiral will visit is 
not satisfied on the flagship. The officers say that he 
has some good idea in mind in keeping back the infor- 
mation, as he has in all he does. They will not say 
that is to make sure that no receptions will be pre- 
pared for him. Certain it is that the Olympia is go- 
ing to Hong Kong to have the tropical beard shaved 
off her bottom. Then she will be coaled and 
painted, which, in all, will take about two weeks. 
She must stop at Singapore and Colombo for coal. 



I4 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Moreover, he did say to me that he hoped to visit 
Alexandria. Naples. Trieste and the Piraeus, for he 
is very fond of Greece. 

Two-thirds of the army had never seen the Ad- 
miral. Those of the two-thirds on leave or on the 
convalescent list made haste to repair wasted oppor- 
tunities. The remainder wondered what explana- 
tion they would make to their friends at home for 
not having seen the greatest sight of Manila, Dewey. 
For taking the trouble you might have seen the Ad- 
miral when he came ashore at the quay in front of 
the office of the Captain of the Port, or you might 
have seen him as his carriage sped past in the 
streets. For he rarely missed his daily drive. 
That and the siesta after his luncheon, to 
which he accustomed himself, kept him strong 
enough for his duties. He had a great deal 
of work to do even after he had solved 
his famous three simple propositions. Per- 
haps, though, you don't know what these 
simple propositions were, at least as we understood 
them. I will risk repeating them. After 
the simple proposition of running the mines 
and sinking the enemy's fleet, there came the news 
of Camara's departure for Manila to try to win back 



MANILA. 15 

what Montojo had lost. The Admiral called Cap- 
tain Lamberton into his cabin. 

"It's my opinion that Camara would return," he 
said, "if the United States should make a retreat on 
the coast of Spain. I am thinking of sending a 
cablegram to the Navy Department making the 
suggestion. What is your idea?" 

"Do," the Captain replied. 

The Admiral sat down to his desk and wrote. 
Then, just as he was going to pull the bell to bring 
his orderly, he had a second thought. 

"But I'm afraid," he added, "that suggestions to 
the Navy Department made half way round the 
world, come with rather poor taste. The Depart- 
ment has its plans and I would better attend to my 
own business." 

"You have to fight him when he does come," said 
the Captain, quickly. "You have done enough, I 
should think, to make your advice of a little value." 

So the Admiral pressed the bell for the orderly. 
Camara might well thank for him for it; also 
Spain. He left her enough ships for a nest egg for 
a new navy. After sending the cablegram, the Ad- 
miral began to prepare for Camara in case he should 
come. 

He had a quiet little talk with General Anderson 



1 6 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

who was commanding the troops that had just ar- 
rived. 

"Supposing I should sail out of the bay for a few 
days, what could your force do to take care of itself 
until my return?" he asked the General. 

"Take thirty days' rations to the mountains," was 
the reply, "dig trenches and be perfectly safe and 
comfortable." 

"Very well; that is what you will have to do in 
case Camara comes," said the Admiral. "In order 
to be on equal terms with him I need that flatiron 
which is on its way across the Pacific. She will not 
be here until after the date which we estimate to be 
that of Camara's possible arrival. I shall sail east- 
ward to meet the Monterey, and having met her 
shall return to meet the enemy." 

The third simple proposition was German inter- 
ference. There is no disputing facts, and sometimes 
there is no disputing appearances. Prince Henry of 
Prussia is a good friend of ours — now. So is Ad- 
miral Von Diedrichs. Likewise, bygones are by- 
gones. History is likely to find in appearances in- 
disputable evidence that the Germans came to Ma- 
nila, perhaps not to make us trouble, but to be in a 
good position tohelp us out of the Philippines in case 
we should get into trouble ourselves. Else why 



MANILA. 17 

should they send a squadron as large as our own to 
protect a dozen little German merchants in a small 
way of business in Manila and make enemies of the 
Power to whose tender mercies they were soon to 
be submitted? Why should they have taken away 
the whole squadron when it became apparent that 
we had whipped Spain in the Western seas and 
could take care of ourselves in the Eastern seas, 
leaving the interests of these dozen German mer- 
chants entirely in our hands after a passage of com- 
pliments ? But let her have the benefit of the doubt, 
of the appearance of self-denial. The Kaiser was 
just as ambitious for a Colonial Empire, and the 
Philippines were just as rich when his squadron re- 
turned to My Brother, the Prince, as when it came. 
This period was an anxious one for the Admiral. 
With a word he could have carried out the desire 
of his officers and men; he could have justifiably 
placed our nation at war with two nations instead of 
one. After bearing with the Germans with patience 
nothing short of magnificent, he did let Admiral 
Von Diedrichs know that the limit was reached. 
Admiral Von Diedrichs went to Sir Edward Chiches- 
ter for advice. Sir Edward replied that only Ad- 
miral Dewey and himself knew what would happen 
if the situation came to the worst. This was very 



lg GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

diplomatic of Sir Edward. He said at another time 
that if he had been in the Admiral's place he would 
not have asked the Irene to come back; he would 
have gone after her with eight-inch shells. Sir Ed- 
ward ought to ride up Broadway at the same time as 
the Admiral. We could not do too much for him, 
considering what he has done for us. The Admiral, 
however, paid him a little of his reward on account 
on the spot. Upon the arrival of fresh mutton from 
Australia he signalled to him to send alongside and 
get enough for a ration for his whole crew. The 
Germans got none. 

"I have walked the decks many nights," the Ad- 
miral said to General Greene, shortly afterward. 
"Now I shall let the army do the worrying." 

He did up to a certain point, as he had no more 
simple propositions to deal with. But he was in 
command of the Asiatic Squadron in all that per- 
tains to the name up to the moment that he left 
Manila. This was routine of an exacting order 
enough in a temperate climate. In a climate as try- 
ing as that which was the lot of the North Atlantic 
Squadron off Santiago he bore the strain as well as 
any officer on board. His thirteen months in Ma- 
nila was a test for any man of his age, however vig- 
orous. Seeming to do everything with the consum- 



MANILA. 19 

mate ease of an artist drawing a line, he is, as a mat- 
ter of fact, a nervous New England American with 
an enormous capacity for details. It is because he 
has thought things out beforehand, those who know 
him best say, that his decisions come quickly and 
easily when they are needed. His air of ease 
made it a little difficult for his club friends in Wash- 
ington to understand how he had become a great 
man; his punctiliousness about the little things of 
life led them to think he was not deep; his neat 
appearance led them to think he was fond of dress. 
He is a handsome man with a manner which would 
make him look well in blue jeans. He preferred the 
corner at the club ; he read a great deal ; he never 
delivered discourses on fleet evolutions, for so neat 
a man must find it rather cumbersome to carry his 
mind on his sleeve. I should say that he would 
make a good explanation of how he did anything if 
he were to try to make the explanation at length. 
He acts upon the mass of details at his finger-ends 
with the instinct of genius. Indeed, genius is the 
word which his officers use whenever they 
speak of him as a commander. He has the capacity 
of a Farragut and a Nelson for great situations, that 
vital spark which turns a good commander into a 
great one. 



20 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

"Quick judgment!" said one of his officers. "It 
is that which makes him a continual revelation to 
us. Without it one may command a vessel, 
even a squadron, well in time of peace. In war, af- 
ter organization, it is everything. Often he gives 
orders which seem very unreasonable at the time. 
After two or three days we begin to see some reason 
in them. In a month they turn out to be right. 
That gives you such confidence that you would go 
against anything under his command. The Jackies 
think, if they had the Admiral on the bridge, they 
could fight a battleship with the unarmored Olym- 
piad 

"I don't want to be called up by the old man, 
thank you," is one of the watchwords of the Olym- 
pia. 

"He goes at you like a Colt's automatic, I'm told 
— I'm told, you understand," said an ensign. "He 
rakes you up and down, fore and aft and athwart in 
a breath. He puts facts before you in a little hur- 
ricane of words because he has bided his time. 
They come in a way that makes you see how care- 
less you have been and you couldn't say a 
word back if you had the privilege. But 
all the while you have a feeling of safety down 
in your boots. You know that nobody will 



MANILA. 21 

ever know a word of what he has said to 
you unless you tell it yourself. It is all between 
him and you. If a man from your own town should 
visit the ship an hour afterward he would volunteer 
the information that you were one of the best officers 
in the service. So far as the outside world is con- 
cerned, every officer and man in the squadron is an 
officer and a man to be proud of. Family affairs are 
kept in the family. 

"The best and greatest feature about the old man 
is his iheart. We would love him for that if he 
hadn't such a great head. After he has called you 
down 'he feels sorry about it — afraid he has been 
too harsh — afraid he has hurt your feelings — and 
before many hours pass he will come up to you on 
deck and make some kindly remark that puts 
everything right, or you hear how he has been di- 
recting that you have leave for a little holiday. He 
is naturally on the side of the weak. So far as his 
friends go, it does not make any difference whether 
you are a lieutenant or a general. If he likes you, 
that settles it." 

"Heart!" said "Jim," the coxswain, "heart! 
I know I've been under as many different command- 
ers as I've got fingers and toes. Heart ! Don't care 
who comes ! This'll be a damn sight different ship 



22 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

when he's gone. It's him that keeps things oiled 
down here where things ain't made to go right. 
Liver? Oh, Ombray, it ain't never so bad he can't 
drop a word to the men. Don't his eyes twinkle 
when there's a dozen of us hold of a rope and he 
gives us a jolly about how easy 'tis for one fellow 
out of a dozen to let on he's pullin' when he ain't. 
Liver? I'd like to know what man in his place 
wouldn't have snapped old Purdy off so short his 
hair would 'a' stood on end. Oh, Ombray, but think 
of the nerve of Purdy! Mugging right 
back on to the sacred after-deck as if he 
expected to be taken into council when the 
Admiral was busy with plans the day before 
the fight. 'Well,' said the Admiral, looking 
up. AVhat is it you want, Purdy?' Purdy didn't 
want nothing except to give the Admiral some ad- 
vice. 'I hope, Admiral,' says he, 'you ain't goin' agin 
the Spaniards on the third of May. Last fight I 
was in was on the third of May and the rebs licked 
us to a standstill' Instid of ordering Purdy pitched 
into the sea for his impudence for talking that way. 
In alone going on the after-deck , the Admiral 
laughed and says, 'Don't you worry, Purdy. We're 
going to fight on the first.' Then Purdy saluted 
and strutted back to the fo'c'stle. I didn't know but 



MANILA. 23 

he 'd ask for nineteen guns and say he was Secretary 
of the Navy." 

Since becoming a public character, Purdy is oi 
a more retiring nature. He now tries to deny that he 
ever gave the Admiral advice and that he ever said : 

"To hell with breakfast ! Let's finish the job." 

If the men enjoyed no entertainments ashore, the 
Admiral enjoyed none. He never went to dinners 
or gave them in the period between the taking of the 
city and the outbreak of the rebellion, although so- 
cial gatherings were frequent among the officers' 
families and officers. "Ombray," wore evening dress. 

He kept himself in careful training, as it were, so 
that he should be able to bear the physical strain of 
as long a vigil as his country's interests should re- 
quire. "I must watch out for myself and keep well, 
as well as the men," as he put it. "I'm a part of the 
fleet." There is now the fear that, the great incen- 
tive for keeping well having passed, there may be a 
reaction. 

He rose invariably at five and walked on the deck 
for a little time in the cool of the morning. At night 
he rarely slept more than five or six hours, these not 
continuously. If he awoke he could not lie still; he 
arose and walked or played with his pet dog "Bob," 
who always sleeps in his room. 



24 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

This Chinese "chow" dog, whom the Admiral 
found a vagrant in a foreign land and adopted, has 
the run of the flagship. He is a ball of fur, with a 
wolfish nose and his tail bent over his back, perpetu- 
ally on the salute. There was a time in Southern 
China when they ate all such dogs as "Bob." Now 
they eat only those that they cannot sell to foreign- 
ers for pets. Before "Bob" came, "Sagasta," a na- 
tive pig, washed every day and shaved once a week, 
was the Olympia's only mascot. 

He resents "Bob's" presence and is still mascot by 
right of might. 

"Bob," the Admiral says seriously to him, "I think 
that your ancestors were Esquimaux. You are quite 
like them, except in color. Probably your great 
grandfather and great grandmother were tanned 
brown in their migration southward." 

"Bob" always went ashore with the Admiral in 
the barge, and while the Admiral was driving, Rob- 
inson, the orderly of the barge, took "Bob" for a 
walk ; or "Bob" took Robinson. At any rate, it 
meant shore leave for Robinson ; also a good deal of 
(.-xercise. 

Between the Admiral and the world stood Mr. 
Brumby. If you would see the Admiral you must 
see him. He is quiet, suave and punctilious— a 



MANILA. 25 

Dewey kind of flag-lieutenant. The Admiral 
adopted many of his suggestions for the plan ot 
the battle of Manila. It was he who raised the 
American flag over the city on the thirteenth of 
August. He has had the great privilege of work- 
ing under Dewey as Dewey had under Farragut. 
The time may come when he, in turn, will perpet- 
uate the Farragut school. If any one knew the 
Admiral's plans, Mr. Brumby knew them. You 
might be sure that he would give them out either 
to the other officers or to civilians unless it was 
meet and proper that they should be given out. 
Lieutenant Caldwell stood between the Admiral 
and the Post Office. The Admiral does little or no' 
writing with a pen. He dislikes sitting long at a 
desk. There were times, perhaps, when Mr. Brum- 
by thought that he was not a great success as a 
flag-lieutenant and when Mr. Caldwell thought that 
he was not a great success as a private secretary. 
They should hear what the Admiral said behind the 
backs of these members of his family. 

"Mr. Caldwell has a great gift for composition," 
I heard him say once. "I tell him what I want 
said and he says it a great deal better than I could 
say it. For the letters and cables to the Depart- 



2 6 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

ment, which seem to have given great satisfaction, 
I have to thank him." 

"Without telling tales out of school," says the 
secretary with a knowing smile, "I must say that 
I write precisely what the Admiral tells me to 
write. I know hetter than to write anything else. 
He is very particular about the wording of his 
letters to the Department." 

Stepping out of his cabin the Admiral is on the 
after, or poop, deck, which is reserved to him and 
to Captain Lamberton. Overhead was the double 
thickness of awning which covered all the decks, 
with side awnings drawn down to keep the glare 
of the sun off. At sunset the awnings were removed 
to admit the evening breeze. Here in a com- 
fortable cane chair he was away from his shop and 
he read the newspapers and whatever new 
books he could get from home or dropped them 
for old books that he had read again and 
again. The shelf in his cabin is packed with works 
of history and good novels. 

As a rule the Admiral went for his drive in the 
cool of the afternoon, just after his siesta, though 
occasionally in the early morning. He has been 
known to call on generals out on the lines before 
they were up. It is a mile or more from the Olym- 




^ 



/"^— -nA; 



V 




ADMIRAL DEWEY ASHORE AT MANILA 

"THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PHILIPPINE COACHMAN WAS 

THE PROUDEST MAN IN THE ISLAND" 

F>om bhotosnabh taken bv the author 



MANILA. 27 

pia to the mouth of the Pasig with its stone quays 
and its swarms of native cascos. The barge with 
four stars on her bow and the Admiral's flag flying 
from her stern made the journey in about the time 
a casco took to cross the stream. His Filipino 
coachman, with as fast a pair of ponies as there was 
in Manila — the Admiral never drove at a walk 
— waited for him in the shade of the trees 
by the office of the Captain of the Port. 
As soon as the barge hove in sight it was 
the signal for Lieutenant Braunersreuther, who is 
Captain of the Port, to go down to the landing 
place to receive the Admiral and for the coachman 
to stiffen upon his box and follow with the carriage. 
The Admiral and Mr. Braunersreuther passed 
the time of day. He asked the Admiral if there 
was anything he could do for him. There seldom 
was. A newspaper correspondent maybe, or some- 
one else who wished to speak with him then stepped 
up and had his say, always receiving a cheerful 
response. Then the Admiral told the coachman 
where he would go and he was off. He returned 
by six or half past — just at dusk — so as to be on 
board in time to comply with the rule made by the 
Admiral himself that all officers must be aboard 
by seven. He seldom drove alone. Either Mr. Brum- 



28 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

by, Captain Lamberton, Captain Barker or some 
other officer of his squadron accompanied him. 
He is fond of company, but not of a crowd. After 
we had taken the waterworks from the Filipinos 
his favorite course lay in that direction. He pre- 
ferred a clipping gait along a road in the country 
or the suburbs to the music of the regimental band 
on the Luneta where the headquarters' officers and 
their wives drove around and around the promen- 
ade. Convalescent sick and wounded privates on 
foot and the remaining Spanish officers in seated 
groups, clacking away with many gesticulations as 
they explained why "it happened," added pictur- 
esqueness to the scene. He sometimes passed by 
the Luneta on his return but never stopped. It 
was not in his nervous nature to be a part of a slow 
moving procession, which is precisely suited to old 
General Rios who still hangs on and has his usual 
Sunday morning confab with General Otis over 
trifles. 

The last few times that the Admiral came ashore 
there was always a little gathering of the convales- 
cent soldiers, thin, tall, pale, their blue shirts and 
kharkee breeches hanging loose on wasted torsos 
and limbs, who wanted a glimpse of the great 
man before he went away. Their comrades who were 



MANILA. 29 

well, and some who were not well, were at the front. 
Once they raised a little cheer. It was the first 
time that the man who was going home to hear 
the hosannas of seventy million people had been 
directly applauded in the history of his command 
of the Asiatic Squadron. He looked up with sur- 
prise and pleasure, smiled and raised his cap. 

"Magnificent fellows," the ever-human Admiral 
would exclaim, when he saw a man with his arm 
in a sling. "They haven't their equal in the world. 
May every one of them get well and strong again. 
Our country can't do too much for them." 

They said : 

"Against expansion or for it, you must believe 
in Dewey. You've only to look at him to see thai; 
he's all right — to see that he's great, broad, simple, 
strong." 

They thought, and sometimes they said : 

"Lord, if there were only more Deweys in high 
places !" 

If he was ever led to speak of his victory, he 
never failed to add "and not a man killed. That 
was the best thing about it." (This from the man 
whose nature is such that he would fight his ship 
to the last gun and the last man.) The capture of 
Lieutenant Gilmore and his men affected him very 



30 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

deeply. He took the keenest interest in every little 
movement of the troops ; and his first question of 
everybody who went aboard was for news. When 
General McArthur told him of the good work that 
his own Lieutenant Davis, of the Helena, had done 
wit' the Colt's Automatic in the advance on Mal- 
olos, the lights in the eyes of the proud father of the 
family danced. 

"I have been watching that young man," he said, 
with one of his good smiles, "and I think that young 
man will get promotion." 

During the time between the announcement of 
his departure and his going, the envoys of the 
Filipinos made their overtures for peace which, for 
the moment, seemed to promise a speedy close of 
the war. This made these last few days especially 
happy for him. 

Meanwhile, the news had been spread that all who 
wished to go aboard the Olympia were welcome. 
The Jackies were at home to their friends of the 
army. I noticed two brothers, one a sergeant of 
regulars, and the other a petty officer, chatting 
for an hour or more. The Sergeant's regiment 
had just arrived. He was not to see his brother 
again until his term of three years' tropical service 
had expired. In the meantime he was taking his 



MANILA. 31 

chances against Filipino bullets. It often happens 
that men in the navy have been in the army. One 
of the Olympia's mail orderlies, for example, served 
two enlistments in a cavalry regiment. 

As the Olympia was to sail on Saturday, the Ad- 
miral paid his social calls on Friday. He also 
went to General Otis's office for a meeting of the 
President's Commission. If you would know what 
happened there you need not go to the Admiral. 
It was in the family, you see. Such things will 
become the property of the corridors of Headquar- 
ters, notwithstanding. The General seemed to think 
the navy was getting too much credit. Corres- 
pondents were required to state explicitly that the 
improvised gunboats on the lakes and the rivers 
were in charge of army officers. A cablegram 
vised by the Admiral must pass through the cen- 
sor's hand. General Otis had bought the fleet of 
gunboats which the Spaniards had used to patrol 
the islands, losing most of the guns to the Fili- 
pinos in the transaction. Now the General proposed 
to put these in charge of soldiers and have a little 
navy of his own. One day when he was having 
steam got up in one of his gunboats, the Admiral, 
they say, wrote to the General a little letter saying 
that it would become his duty to seize as a menace 



32 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

to navigation any vessel flying the American flag 
which did not recognize the commander of our 
force in the Asiatic seas. The General banked the 
fires on his gunboat. 

Tin pricks will eventually draw the blood even 
of a great man. Thursday morning the straight- 
forward seaman sat facing the bureaucrat across 
his desk. Some pin prick passed through the Ad- 
miral's affability into a nerve. A dozen sharp, 
short sentences raked the General fore and aft and 
athwart. The General was in the position of the 
Ensign. If he had anything to say, he did not 
know how to say it. In fine, when the Admiral 
bides his time, as he usually does, he does not leave 
the enemy many loopholes. The General does not 
believe in rapid fire guns. He must know now how 
a Filipino in a trench feels, as he pulls off his shirt 
for a white flag, when a stream of lead from one 
is being played over the top of it. 

The Admiral camt out of the General's office 
as affable as ever. He inquired after the mother 
of a second lieutenant whom he knew, as he 
shook hands with him, spoke to others and 
passed on down the stairs to his carriage. Bland 
Mr. Schurman seemed to be in the state of mind 
of one who was trying to reconcile sunshine and 



MANILA. 33 

a tornado. Yesterday morning the General went 
aboard the Olympia at seven. He excused himself 
for being so early because he was such a busy 
man. If the Admiral was not up he would not 
disturb him. Mr. Brumby replied that the Ad- 
miral had been up for two hours, as was his 
custom. At ten the Admiral went ashore and was 
smiling when he entered General Otis's office to 
return the call and smiling when he came out. 
Then he said good-bye to that once vain, but now 
dejected, brown being, his Filipino coachman. 
While he was at luncheon his barge was lashed 
aboard. He was not to set foot on the soil of the 
Philippines again. 

Every available steam launch, and they were not 
numerous, had been engaged for the afternoon. 
At three o'clock the Admiral was the center of a 
little group of friends who had come to pay their 
respects. They were naval men, soldiers and civil- 
ians who knew him personally; and, finally, the 
newspaper correspondents, who tried not to be un- 
duly troublesome and who loved him. In return 
for their good wishes he wished them good of 
Manila while they remained. He was in the gay 
mood of one who is putting the sea between himself 
and care. 



34 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

"Am I delighted?" he exclaimed, "delighted 
at the thought of going after having been thirteen 
months in this bay? Why, I can really claim to 
have been the most loyal of all. When the 
Olympia was sent to Hong Kong to be docked I 
simply transferred my flag and had Manila still on 
my horizon. Mr. Brumby" — turning to the Flag- 
Lieutenant — "had a trip to Hong Kong at anothei 
time. And I believe you were homesick to return, 
eh ?" 

"No, sir," was the reply of the Flag-Lieutenant, 
who, in common with Mr. Caldwell, takes a cer- 
tain amount of chaff from the Admiral every day 
as a part of his official duties. 

"Delighted!" the Admiral continued; "words 
cannot express my delight." 

The Admiral had done his part when he set the 
hour for weighing anchor. There was no bustle 
in the final preparations. There never is on the 
Olympia, and never has been since the Admiral took 
command of the Asiatic Squadron. Everything 
is clockwork with muffled ticks. Captain Lam- 
berton makes the management of a cruiser seem so 
easy that you think you could take charge of one 
yourself. All he does, so far as I can see, is to say 
do this and that, and this and that are done. He 



MANILA. 35 

does not pretend to be a magician. He is only the 
Admiral's kind of a naval officer. 

After all we were witnessing only the return of 

a family party from a somewhat inhospitable if 
not a foreign land to pie, beefsteaks and catarrh. 
No member, consequent or inconsequent, was ab- 
sent. Isaac Rask, able seaman serving his fourth 
enlistment, who was dying of consumption, asked 
not to be left behind at the hospital. The Admiral 
said "Certainly not," as if anyone did wrong 
to think of such a fate for a man who had fought 
under him. "Bob" and "Sagasta" were both aboard. 
The only disagreements in the family have been 
between them. Neither can yet understand the 
sense of having two mascots on one vessel. Their 
enmity has not been disastrous, for "Bob" has 
learned the object of fleet manoeuvres and can 
dodge around an obstruction, leaving "Sagasta" 
to run his nose into the first obstacle in front of 
him without gaining any wisdom from the exper- 
ience. Naval history records scarcely an instance 
where officers have dwelt together so long as those 
of the Olympia without any differences. It re- 
cords none where tropical livers are concerned. 
The cause is found in Captain Lamberton's smile 
and the Admiral's methods. 



36 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

As the bulk of steel called the Olympia 
responded to the turn of her screw, the Ore- 
gon and the Baltimore ripped out their salutes 
and manned their yards, and the Olympia replied 
in turn. The guns of the British Powerful 
also spoke; her band returned the Olympia's "God 
Save the Queen" with the "Star Spangled Banner;" 
her Jackies, en masse on the poop deck, gave 
a rousing cheer. Hamlet was gone, but one whom 
Hamlet had taught his lines, Captain Barker, re- 
mained. 

Manila, May 21, 1899. 



CHAPTER II. 

HONG KONG. 

Wherever there is coal for sale in the Far East, 
in mere recognition of the fact that he needs no in- 
terpreter, the American must look up to the flag 
flying over the fortress with a feeling of brotherly 
love. All British ports in the Far East are devoted 
to the Admiral ; most of all is Hong Kong, both for 
reasons of self-interest, which are natural, and for 
reasons of sentiment, which are also natural. 

Our occupation of the Philippines is to Hong 
Kong what the Klondyke was to the cities of 
Puget Sound. We have bought clothes and pro- 
visions of her merchants, and given her tramp 
steamers and adventurers work to do. It has been 
equally fortunate for her and for us that she had 
dry docks for the accommodation of the members 
of our Asiatic Squadron when they became 
foul, and foundries to make of the cap- 
tured Isla de Cuba, Isla de Luzon and Don 
Juan de Austria serviceable gunboats under the 
Stars and Stripes. We don't thank her for her 



38 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Filipino Junta and she confesses to being ashamed 
of it. 

The Admiral had mobilized his squadron in Hong 
Kong harbor in the early months of '98, when the 
trend of events began setting inevitably toward a 
conflict with Spain. Hong Kong saw little of him 
then. That little was of a quiet, retiring, affable 
commander, whose manners and address reflected 
credit on the service to which he belonged. He did 
not visit the Hong Kong Club, where official Hong 
Kong gathers, and officers of foreign, particu- 
larly American, men-of-war, are made at home. He 
remained aboard the Olympia and was very busy. 
Hong Kong understood well enough what he was ex- 
pected to do. Things which had not reached the pa- 
pers at home were no secret here. The young men 
of the club wanted him to make a dash into the Bay. 
The old men thought that a blockade was more 
conservative and likely. No one thought that he 
would get past the mines at the entrance of the bay 
without considerable loss. On the third Sunday of 
April the Governor told him that he would have to 
take his fleet out of the harbor. 

"It's the orders from London. We have declared 
our neutrality," he added apologetically. 

"If it's orders from London, of course," the Ad- 



HONG KONG. 39 

miral replied. "But war has not been declared yet." 
So he sailed out to Mirs Bay, where he might 
await the word from Washington, while the Gov- 
ernor felt as if he had been impolite to a guest. He 
was glad of the opportunity for reparation which 
came a few months later when, although peace had 
not been declared, he allowed our vessels to be 
docked in Hong Kong on the ground that Spain, 
which had not a single man-of-war afloat in the 
Eastern seas, might enjoy the same privileges. Hav- 
ing seen the Admiral depart for battle with their 
godspeed, the rulers of Hong Kong had to wait 
thirteen months to congratulate him. I did not see 
him land, as it was impossible, owing to the con- 
nections between Hong Kong and Manila, to be 
present at his departure there and precede him on 
his arrival here. He had the customary Guard of 
Honor. Then the hospitality of Government House 
was placed at his disposal. If he had chosen, he 
could have dined out every night. As an explana- 
tion of his refusal of all invitations, he could refer 
every one to the southeast monsoon, which beats 
up the choppiest sea in the world for the distance. 
Combined with Spanish quarantine and the Spanish 
belief (not without reason) that anyone who visits 
the Philippines must either be mad or else have 



40 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

some ulterior purpose, it made Manila the last place 
for the globe trotter to include in his itinerary. 
There is nothing like a monsoon to stir up any 
stomach in the same body with a tropical liver and 
bid it take a rest. The Admiral's was no exception 
So he did not go to Government House. 

Fifteen hundred feet above Hong Kong is the 
Peak. Along macadamized paths between the two 
are the villas of the rulers who have transformed 
Hong Kong from a barren rock to a scene of trop 
ical beauty. They live on from day to day in the 
hope of spending their old age in England or in 
Scotland on a pension, and ride back and forth to 
office or barracks in rickshaws drawn by coolies, 
chairs borne by coolies, or by the funicular railway 
up the hillside which has saved them the expense of 
sending their wives to Japan for the summer by 
making the Peak as accessible as the top story of a 
building with an elevator. Physicians have come to 
speak of the Peak as Dr. Peak. The funicular rail- 
way takes you from an enervating to a health-giv- 
ing atmosphere. When it is as steamy in Hong 
Kong as it is in New York on the worst August 
• lays, a cool mist hangs over the Peak, or a breeze 
is blowing there. 

The Admiral was pleased rather than disappointed 



HONG KONG. 4I 

to find that he would have to walk up two pairs of 
stairs, after stepping out of the elevator, in order to 
get to the one vacant room in the Peak hotel. 

"The climb will do me good," was his remark. 

It was a day of alternate mists and sunshine when 
I went to him here to get certain information 
which I knew that he alone could supply authori- 
tatively. Naturally I feared that I should disturb 
him. 

"Not at all," he said. "I have been reading all 
the morning. My eyes are tired. I am glad of the 
opportunity of a chat. You can see that I have 
enough to read," he added, pointing to his steamer 
trunk, which was piled high with letters and news- 
papers. "For the moment I have been reading a 
pamphlet against anti-expansion which came in the 
latest mail. It is very well written and interesting." 

The two hours which I spent with him here will 
remain with me as the pleasantest impression of a 
great man I have ever had. Before this when I had 
seen him he had been on duty. Now he was out of 
harness. For the first time I saw him dressed as a 
civilian. In a plain gray suit he was very much the 
well-groomed, well-to-do business man who was 
spending his vacation in a manner pleasing to one of 
quiet tastes. Already Dr. Peak's prescriptions were 



42 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

working. There was color in his cheeks. The air 
of the heights was wine to kings that had been 
breathing tropical heat. He had left the window 
open, and was sitting by the casement. A burst of 
mist was suddenly blown in upon our heads. 

"I like it, if you don't mind," he said. "It is so 
cool and fresh. I don't know of any greater contrast 
than this and the Bay of Manila, though I am told 
that we shall find equally pleasant places where our 
soldiers and sailors can recruit once we have the 
mountains of Luzon. All I have to do is to breathe 
this air, to read, to walk and talk. It's glorious ! 
For the first time in fifteen months I have 
slept ashore. You cannot imagine the delight 
of the change. I slept aboard while we were 
here before ; I slept aboard all the time we were in 
Manila. The men I could not permit to have shore 
leave for reasons which everybody knows. I re- 
quired the officers to be aboard by seven in the even- 
ing. For the sake of example I was always aboard 
at seven myself. I didn't want the men to think 
that the old man couldn't obey his own orders." 

His field glasses were lying on the casement. 
When the mist cleared away he picked them up 
and looked down to the harbor lying fifteen hundred 
feet below us. 



HONG KONG. 43 

"I can see my Olympia quite plainly from here," 
he said. "How well her lines show up! They are 
as fine as a yacht's." 

"She is your yacht for present purposes," I sug- 
gested." 

"So she is. We are journeying at our leisure and 
without hindrance or call. We have some advan- 
tages over a yacht. For example, most pri- 
vate yachts have not quite so much pres- 
tige, have they?" he exclaimed with a char- 
acteristic smile and toss of his head. "I re- 
member that President Cleveland said to m~ 
once when he was serving his second term 
that the commander of an American man-of-war on 
the European station occupied about as fine a posi- 
tion as was in the gift of his countrymen." 

"And the Olympia has certain advantages over 
the ordinary man-of-war." 

"Ah, possibly, possibly," with another toss of his 
head. "I shall be glad when she is white again," 
he continued. "She is beautiful then." 

She was now the color of brick in transforma- 
tion from that of war to that of peace. 

The sight of the bay must have brought back 
recollections of the day when he was still quite un- 
known outside of official circles, and the Secretary 



44 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

of the Navy was fearful lest the commodore out in 
I long Kong was not the right man in the place. 

"It is thirteen months since we left the harbor, 
and Mrs. Harris has known for more than twelve 
months what we were here for," he said, as he sat 
down. "That is an old story. Mrs. Harris 
is the wife of our Consul at Nagasaki. When 
the fleet was there in January, '98, she asked 
what need we had for so many vessels in these dis- 
tant waters. I told her that the United States had 
a growing commerce in the Far East which needed 
protection ; that now and then the rights of a mis- 
sionary or of one of our citizens who was not a mis- 
sionary were subverted; and, again, that nations 
had been known to go to war. At the time I was 
convinced that an outbreak of hostilities with Spain 
was inevitable. After our occupation of Manila Bay 
I had occasion to write to the Consul, and incident- 
ally I asked if Mrs. Harris now knew why the 
United States had a fleet in Asiatic waters. He re- 
plied , 'Yes, and so do seventy million other Amer- 
icans.' 

"I have always been in favor of an Asiatic squad- 
ron, but not of a European squadron. I have been 
on the European station three times, and on the way 
home, as we shall go leisurely from port to port, I 



HONG KONG. 45 

shall renew old acquaintanceships. I shall recall to 
the Queen of Greece what she said when I was at 
the Piraeus with the Pensacola. 

" 'Captain,' she said, 'the next time we meet I 
hope to see you a full Admiral.' 

"Once I jokingly told a superior officer that I had 
at last found out the object of our European squad- 
ron's existence. Every man on board had either a 
sweetheart or a wife, and our occupation was to go 
from port to port in order to get their letters. When 
Mr. Tracy was Secretary of the Navy, I remember 
once, while dining with him in Washington, he men- 
tioned that he was bothered a great deal in determin- 
ing exactly what to do with the vessels even of our 
little navy. I told him that in my opinion our men- 
of-war should be kept at home, where we should 
need them in case of war. Beside the squadrons of 
the European powers in European waters our 
squadron is insignificant. We shall have no cause 
to make war, and we could not make war with a 
European power in her own waters. Afterward, 
the European squadron was withdrawn, though I 
have no cause to think that this was because of my 
advice." 

The sunlight broke the mist and streamed into 
the room. 



46 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

"I like that, loo," said the Admiral. "It's just 
enough to be appreciated after the little gloom. If 
you don't mind, I will not lower the curtain." 

"I like it, too," I replied. 

That is, I particularly liked it for bringing the 
Admiral's fine features into such bold relief. I was 
reminded of the face of Farragut which St. Gaudens 
has represented so wonderfully in the statue which 
stands in Madison Square, New York. There is 
about Dewey's eyes the same keen, good-humored, 
open expression Which is found in the sailor who is 
used to looking straight toward the horizon but 
rarely in the landsman who squints at the turning 
of the road or the street. He is proud of his eye- 
sight. With the young men of his staff and Cap- 
tain Lamberton looking at the same time, he was the 
first to see the appearing and disappearing fleck of 
white of the flag — it was being blown toward the 
fleet by the wind — which indicated that the city of 
Manila surrendered to the power of the United 
States. His eyes smile even when his strong chin 
closes up under his heavy white mustache in a pos 
itive "no." His eyes smiled when he told his of 
ficers that they might bring their wives to Manila 
but that if they did it was no guarantee of shore 
leave. His nose is as fine as his chin. It. is New 



HONG KONG. 47 

England Saxon from its tip to his eyebrows. If it 
were not for his high forehead it would seem a little 
large. It is a forehead that as surely goes with the 
philosopher as his nose and chin go with the man of 
action. 

If you are interested in the expression of the Ad- 
miral's eyes, you always make it a point to bring 
Farragut into the conversation- I did. They 
sparkled and he tossed his head a little as if he 
sniffed sea spray. 

"I'm of Farragut's school," he said, with the 
pride of a Greek who had sat at the feet of Socrates. 
"I was only a midshipman, but I used to overhear a 
great many of his remarks and I did not forget 
them. A favorite expression of his was , 'Yoa 
may be a little bit anxious yourself, but don't 
forget that the enemy may be even more 
anxious. He is ignorant of your resources 
as you are of his; as likely to over-estimate them. 
Your first aggressive move is certain to put him on 
the defensive. Seek him out and strike him.' " 

"Always, Admiral?" 

"Well," laughing, "not if you have a cruiser and 
he has a squadron. The error of too much discre- 
tion is more common than that of too little at sea. 
The English have always gone to the ports 



4 g GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

of the enemy. Nelson struck the enemy 
first and forced him to fight according to 
Nelson's plans. Drake sailed out to meet the 
Armada, although outnumbered. If ever a man 
practiced his theories and proved them it was Far- 
ragut." 

Then he spoke of the Spaniards, putting the es- 
sence of their tactics in the war in a nutshell : 

"Nations act according to their true nature in 
great crises. You could scarcely expect the nation 
which was once the mistress of almost all Europe 
and had been continually yielding, continually on the 
defensive for two hundred years to take the offens- 
ive in a war to preserve what she possessed." 

His officers say that if he had had charge of the 
naval strategy of the North Atlantic, we should not 
have been guarding the coast of Maine. 

"The men who met him at the club," as one put 
it, "no more realized the fire in him than his neigh- 
bors saw a general in Ulysses Grant as he passed 
the time of day with them from the eminence of a 
pile of cordwood going in to St. Louis." 

Possibly the same vital influences which make na- 
tions true to their character in the greatest tests also 
make a nation's great men a type of its character. 
As thoroughly as Bismarck was of Germany, the 



HONG KONG. 49 

Admiral is typical of the United States. You can 
conceive of him only as an Admiral of the United 
States Navy. He is the essence of that democracy 
and that generous civility to his fellowmen which 
is the basis of our institutions. He is the first com- 
mander of the Asiatic squadron who dispensed with 
the piping of the sides when he went ashore or came 
aboard. After Farragut, Lincoln seems to be his 
favorite hero. He is as likely to turn aside from a 
man of high position and speak to the plain man 
of the streets, as Lincoln was. 

"I have just been reading some of Lincoln's let- 
ters this morning," he said, picking up a current 
magazine. "I suppose I have read them before. At 
all events, they are as good as new. What matters 
is the suggestions you get out of them. You never 
lay down anything about Lincoln without having 
gained something by it. Here is his letter in re- 
sponse to Hooker's plea for a military dictatorship 
in order to bring the war to a speedy end. Lincoln 
tells him that it is military successes that make dic- 
tatorships and not the other way around. He is re- 
minded that if he will win military success the Pres- 
ident will take care of the dictators. Aguinaldo will 
soon learn this truth. He cannot keep his army to- 
gether unless he wins battles." 



^O' GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

We came to speak at some length of affairs in the 
Philippines, past and present. 

"There is a general opinion at home that if you 
had been made Governor-General things would have 
gone more to our liking," I suggested. 

"There have been Admirals who were Governors- 
General. They made very good ones, I'm told," he 
said, with that little toss of his head, and almost 
an expression of regret coming into his fine coun- 
tenance. 

"As you are not to be Governor-General, some say 
that you may be President. If you said the word — " 

He put up his hands as if he were warding off a 
blow. 

"You know I am a full Admiral," he said. "The 
navy is my profession and my love. I have all that 
I desire." 

"But if the country demanded it?" 

"I have been in the navy all my life. Politics is 
not my school. Why should I want to begin a new 
career when I have reached the summit of the one 
which I have chosen?" 

As he laid the magazine back on the trunk some of 
the pile of letters fell off. He had picked them up 
before I had the chance. In Manila he received as 
many as three hundred letters in a single mail. Most 



HONG KONG. 5 1 

of them were from admiring fellow-countrymen 
and women who wanted to express to him their ad- 
miration for something he had said or done, or were 
naming a baby after him. Some had axes to grind, 
with the handles fairly sticking out of the en- 
velopes. 

"One was sent addressed simply, 'Our George, 
Manila,' " he said. "I got it too. That speaks pretty 
well for our mail service to the Philippines, con- 
sidering the length of time we have been there." 

"The mail service is good, but I wouldn't consider 
the incident as being much testimony," I suggested. 
"As soon as a postal clerk — an American postal 
clerk — caught sight of that address he would take 
pains to hurry the letter on to its destination." 

"Perhaps he would," he said, as if surprised at 
his own popularity. "Perhaps the sender took the 
surest way of getting it to me. In Manila," he con 
tinued, "I had not the time and was not well enough 
to read much of my mail. I turned the letters over to 
Mr. Brumby and Mr. Caldwell. They answered 
all requiring an answer. Think of the extra work 
it put on their shoulders besides what usually falls 
to an Admiral's Flag-Lieutenant and Secretary, to 
say nothing of the climate and the confinement. 
They stood to it gallantly to the last moment. 



52 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

They are fine fellows. I don't know what I should 
do without them. Have you seen Mr. Brumby? 
He is looking much better isn't he? He is having 
a holiday; and I am having a diversion reading 
some of the letters myself. I am enjoying then- 
too." 

He selected one from the lot. 

"I have just received another from my little 
friend in Illinois. Our correspondence began short- 
ly after the battle. She wrote a simple girlish letter 
saying how greatly pleased she was with what I 
had done. If she only had a button from my uni- 
form she would be quite happy, she thought. I sent 
it to her. She sent me her photograph. So we have 
kept writing back and forth. She tells me now 
that she is going to school in the East this fall." 

That young woman is more fortunate than certain 
persons of some importance in certain communities. 
Their letters, perhaps accompanied with letters of 
introduction, have been buried, handle and blade, 
in the waste paper basket. If you want a favor from 
the Admiral, unless you have a letter from Theo- 
dore Roosevelt or some old friend, it is best to go 
to the Admiral on your own merits. 

"Will the quarantining of Eastern ports by the 
Egyptian Government in any way change the plans 



HONG KONG. 53 

of \our return voyage?" This was the question I 
had come to ask him. 

"It may prevent our landing at Alexandria. That 
will be a disappointment, as I wanted the officers 
and men to get a glimpse of Egypt." 

"You are not worried about the possibility of any 
of the men contracting the plague here?" 

"No. Not at all. I have just been speaking 
with one of the medical officers of the British army 
here on that point. He says that Europeans who 
are cleanly rarely ever contract it — never if they 
keep away from the native quarters. Before they 
got their leave, Captain Lamberton made a 
little speech warning them of the consequences of 
visiting the native quarters. That was enough. 
Their behavior has been the subject of compliments 
on all sides. The navy of to-day is not the navy 
of yesterday. Eighty per cent, of our men are 
native born. Our seaman of to-day has self-respect. 
He is by far the best paid and best cared for of any 
in the world. He is the product of our common 
schools at home. In his intelligence as much as in 
any other factor we place our trust. If one man 
falls he does not wait for orders, he goes on with 
that man's work. He would not hesitate in the 
performance of his duties if an officer fell. In case 



54 



GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 



of necessity he could take the officer's place. He 
can adapt himself to circumstances. Finally, he 
knows that the country is back of him. When he 
has survived his usefulness it pensions him liberally. 
The conduct of my boys on leave has been worthy 
of their employer, our country. I expected nothing 
else. 

"You see I had the advantage of previous ex- 
perience with them which was the basis of my con : 
fidence. Before going into a battle you always ex- 
pect a certain number of desertions. A man may 
be a very good sailor in time of peace and yet 
suddenly conclude to get out of the service with- 
out the formality of waiting for his discharge when 
he comes face to face with the possibility of death 
or misery and wounds. In all the time we were 
preparing to go to Manila we had only one deser- 
tion. This unhappy fellow is now under arrest at 
Shanghai and is to be tried by courtmartial." 

Our conversation had drifted from one subject 
to another until we had spoken on many subjects, 
as often happens when your talk is the talk of 
diversion and not of effort. We had spoken of 
Washington as well as Lincoln; and we had dis- 
agreed a little. The heart of the punctilious Ad- 
miral went out to the rail-splitter more than to the 



HONG KONG. 55 

punctilious country squire. Incidentally he hap- 
pened to mention his conviction that Washington 
did not write his farewell address. 

"Not the matter?" I asked. 

"Yes; the ideas were his; but the form and dic- 
tion — he had one of you writers to assist him in 
that." 

"I think that the diction is very largely his. The 
amanuensis, at least, was inspired by his diction and 
merely put in the punctuation and had some re 
gard for correctness of form. But these are com- 
paratively little things — the scaffolding." 

"Still, I believe he had a Mr. Brumby or a Mr. 
Caldwell." 

I recalled what the Secretary had said about the 
despatches to the Navy Department, but I did not 
repeat it to the Admiral. (You see I did not want 
to make him vain.) He has the tact of saying 
things in a manner which we call very "pat." That 
is the basis of diction, after all. 

When I arose to go he accompanied me to the 
door. 

"I suppose you will be at home long before 1 
am," he said. 

"A few days perhaps if the proper connections 
can be made from Gibraltar after you leave there. 



$6 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

I am ordered to keep as near to the Olympia as 1 
can. As you are going slowly I expect to be able 
to precede you from port to port in passenger 
steamers." 

"Then I will give you the hint that we shall leave 
here next Tuesday and arrive at Singapore on the 
following Monday morning. I was sorry there 
was no room on board for you on the homeward 
voyage. One officer is sleeping in the wardroon 
now. We had many applications from correspon- 
dents and must serve all alike." 

"I shall easily beat you to Singapore. The 
French Mail is faster." 

"Not if we should let the Olympia out. But if we 
did the crew would have no holiday," he added. 

Lieutenant Hobson, in charge of the reconstruc- 
ting of the gunboats in the Kowloon docks, was 
also living at the Peak. He sometimes accompanied 
the Admiral on his walks along the paths on the 
summit. After dinner and after luncheon, when the 
weather was pleasant, the Admiral sat on the hotel 
piazza, which faces the open sea and affords a 
magnificent view of the sunsets, and chatted with 
whatever guest happened to sit next him. It is 
needless to say what reply this simple American 
made to the invitation of a cad in New York who 



HONG KONG. j7 

wanted to give him a banquet at one hundred dol- 
lars a plate. It was a polite reply. Otherwise it 
would not have been the Admiral's. 
Hong Kong, June 3. 



CHAPTER III. 

HONG KONG. 

Everything is dated from the moment when leaves 
began. They began as soon as the Olympia was 
in drv-dock over in Kowloon ; Kowloon be- 
ing the second penalty — a penalty lying 
across the harbor from the first penalty 
— which the British exacted from the Chinese 
for misbehavior. (If trade keeps on im- 
proving they will have to exact a third penalty 
soon — hopefully, all China.) For the first time in 
months the Olympia's forecastle was all but desert- 
ed. In the wardroom, where, night after night, 
every officer had been present for dinner, only 
enough men to keep the watch appeared at tabic. 
To the wardroom officers were extended the hos- 
pitalities of the Hong Kong Club and of many 
private houses. The city belonged to the Jackies; 
particularly that portion of it which consists 
of rickshaw men. Possession, of course, involved 
purchase. Jacky had the "price." It bulged from 
the pockets of his blue trousers, which are tight 



HONG KONG. 59 

enough around the hips to make up for the prodigal- 
ity of material at their bottoms, in the form of the 
dirty notes which the Hong Kong banks give you 
as an accommodation in order that you may get 
"dobe itch" rather than break your back carrying 

Mexican dollars about. 

"Jim" Johnson kept his word. Purdy lived up to 
his new school of conduct, which avoids talking of 
the victory lest he shall be quoted in the newspapers. 
Everything turned out just as the Jackies expected, 
with the exception of the quality of elasticity in 
"dough." They spent it a little faster than they 
had intended. For that matter, the officers did. 
With Uncle Sam as your paymaster it is not such 
a serious thing if officer or man arrives in New 
York with his debts paid and only a small sum in 
his pocket. But, again, officers are supposed t ) 
have foresight where Jacky has none. They are 
saving their money for the Mediterranean trip ; for 
Venice, Naples and Rome. 

"Oh, Ombray, I'm glad I didn't go on the Ral- 
eigh," said "Jim" Johnson, as he came down the 
gangplank. "I'd have been home now and it would 
all be over. At the time I grumbled under my breath 
a lot. I couldn't see why we should be transferred 
over to the Olympia away from the ship we'd fought 



60 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

with while our shipmates went on to eat pie and 
beefsteak. 'Tain't the first time I didn't know what 
I was talking about. Ombray, I've had just so much 
longer to look forward to the fun and it's still with 
me. But in a minute I'll be in it, in it, kiddies, 
in it." 

As the liberty party— it was as large as the regu- 
lations would permit — lined up on deck the Jackies 
looked strong enough to go through another Phil- 
ippine campaign. The stake was too big for any 
man to be careless about his uniform, and thereby 
stand a chance of being sent below to meditate over 
the fun his companions were having on shore. 
Captain Lamberton had good reason to worry lest 
some of these spick and span men in blue when they 
returned to the flagship would not only not be spick 
and span but would feel worse than if they had been 
in two Philippine campaigns. Despite their super- 
iority as seamen, they were human. Think how 
you yourself would feel when you stepped foot on 
shore for the first time in six months with your 
pocket full of Mexican paper money that stuck its 
ends out asking to be spent. When the Russian 
sailors come in from a voyage of a month the Rus- 
sian officers never think of sending them ashore 
without a patrol. If there is more than one Rus- 



HONG KONG. 6l 

sian ship an extra force of police is called out. When 
the Russian sailor gets fighting drunk he begins to 
enjoy himself by hitting things human and trying 
to smash things that are not. In this stage the 
patrolmen stay his destroying hand as much as pos- 
sible In the second, or inanimate, stage they take 
him down to the boats, toss him in as if he were a 
bale of hay, and afterwards hoist him aboard. On 
special occasions the British sailors also require a 
patrol ; the meek Southern races, which lack force 
as well as self-respect, never. The Olympia's men 
would have needed a guard if there had been any 
German sailors on leave at the same time. 

Captain Lamberton had informed the authorities 
that his men would make no trouble. Their good 
behavior was nothing less than a matter of his 
keeping his word. He mentioned more than the 
honor of the ship to them. He put his request as 
coming from the Admiral. His speech seemed to 
impress the Jackies for the moment. The question 
that the officers asked as each Jacky, when his name 
was called, bolted for the gangway, was : 
"How long will the impression last?" 
With the exception of cases of temporary ob- 
scurement it lasted extremely well. I noticed one 
of the Jackies, who had drunk too much, suffering 



62 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

great qualms of conscience between periods of 
great joy as he made for the quay. Whenever he 
swerved too far to the right or the left he would pull 
himself up and swing his body as if he were stand- 
ing in a small boat in a choppy sea, and mutter to 

himself: 

"Honor-s-s-s-ship! Promished Admiral." 

He was square-shouldered, lithe and vigorous. 
It did not require much stretch of one's scruples 
to forgive him. 

"There's been a great change in the American 
navy in my time," said a member of the Hong Kong 
Club. "I have been here for thirty years. This is 
one of the rendezvous for the navies of the world. 
We see their ships in dock, their officers at the 
clubs and their men in the streets. What strikes 
me most is the great improvement in your person- 
nel. The behavior of these Jackies from the Olym- 
pia is an exception even to American crews. All I 
can make out of it is that service under the Ad- 
miral must turn your Jackies into gentlemen." 

Jacky did not once knock off a Sikh policeman's 
turban. If there could be any proof of the pudding 
it was this proof of self-abnegation. Considering a 
Jacky's privilege ashore, it is a wonder how he 
could resist knocking off at least one Sikh's turban 



HONG KONG. 63 

though he served under two Admirals. The Sikh 
is a born fighting man and six feet tall. He wears 
his hair long and curls his black beard in toward 
his cheeks. On his head are three or four 
yards of cloth in a wonderful roll. If you 
knock off the turban the three or four yards 
of cloth spin out on the ground and his 
hair falls down around his ears. To touch 
his turban is as much of an insult as to tweak 
the nose of a Georgia Colonel. Such was the 
pride of this king among Indian tribesmen that he 
at first made strong objections against going 
to a foreign land to be a policeman rather than a 
soldier. What he thought a Sikh ought to do in a 
foreign land was to slay the foreigner, loot the 
foreigner's house, and make the foreigner's wife a 
Mohammedan. As he understands history, the 
Englishman is the only man who ever whipped 
the Sikh. Therefore he respects the English- 
man and is meek in his presence. When 
he is taught certain things that he must and 
must not do in order to be a good police- 
man in China he learns them. If he is told to 
bear taunts with patience and not to strike 3 
white man in a round top coat and breeches big 
at the bottom he does not strike him. If he is told 



64 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

to pick up his turban and say nothing when a sailor 
knocks it off he picks it up and says nothing. As a 
born fighting man he recognizes that Jacky has 
the advantage of him in the use of certain imple-* 
ments of warfare, and, accordingly, he looks upon 
Jacky as a superior being. If Jacky through the 
tricks of a boxer knocks off his cap too many times 
and his solemnity finally turns into rage, he call? 
for assistance and he and his fellows pick Jacky 
up and carry him away. All in all, the Sikh is a 
fine machine as long as you keep him oiled. The 
oil necessary is a mosque near his barracks and the 
privilege to wear his beard in curls. If the British 
denied him either or asked him to wear a helmet 
instead of a turban they would have a rebel on 
their hands as long as there was a Sikh alive. It 
is better to keep the machine oiled and have a fine 
and picturesque looking policeman at sixpence a 
day. 

Some of the Olympia's men were on such good 
terms with the whole world that they talked to the 
Sikhs and tried to make them laugh. The Sikhs 
looked solemn and said nothing, They cannot 
appreciate a joke in a language they do not under- 
stand any better than anybody else. 

Jacky was more successful in his approaches to 



HONG KONG. 65 

the rickshaw pullers. The rickshaw pullers pre- 
tended to understand anything he said. He under- 
stood it with a grin. He ran to meet him with a 
grin ; and he grinned whenever Jacky spoke a word. 
Scores of rickshaw pullers met every liberty party 
at the quay. Jackies sitting in state in two-wheeled 
carriages — in strange contrast to the brown, bare- 
backed steeds who drew them — were dispersed in 
all directions. They went in pairs, in threes and 
fours, usually ; but once I saw a dozen in line all 
flying out toward Happy Valley. If the people of 
New York want to make Jacky truly happy they 
can import some rickshaws for 'him to ride in up 
and down Broadway. Still, I think that I can say 
on high authority, as those wonderful beings the 
Continental journalists put it, that cabs will do very 
nicely as a substitute. The best provision against 
the plague was Jacky's own strong prejudice 
against filth which he develops aboard ship. He 
rode through the native quarters, held his nose 
and did not tarry. He visited the shops, which are 
nearly all Chinese. Under the impression that he 
wanted souvenirs to take home with him he paid 
the prices that the Chinese merchants asked for 
knicknacks. He rode up to the Peak on the 
funicular railway and made a sudden and reverential 



66 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

salute if he met the Admiral out walking while he 
himself was being borne by two litter bearers. 

The regular tariff of the rickshaw pullers is eight 
cents an hour. If you give them more your friends, 
the British law makers, will tell you that the Amer- 
icans are spoiling Hong Kong with their liberality. 
When the Olympia came here from Manila to be 
docked Jacky had before him the prospect of an- 
other siege in the bay. He gave the rickshaw coolie 
a dollar when he discharged him. This time he 
had a twinge of economy; he wanted to keep a 
little money for Singapore and Colombo; and he 
gave the coolie only fifty cents. If he had given him 
five dollars the coolie, still thinking that Jacky 
was a fool who was in a hurry to be separated from 
his money, would have followed him with gestures 
and cries of complaint. Then Jacky might be pro- 
fane, or he might be tender hearted and give the 
coolie more than was his due in the first place as a 
"tip." If an American man-of-war came to the 
harbor every week most of the rickshaw pullers 
would become compradores and rise to another 
social class. Jacky never gives the coolie any di- 
rections. The coolie understands that he wants to 
go fast until he is hungry and then go to a place 
where he can get something to eat. That is, where 



HONG KONG. 67 

he can get "chow." His experience on the Asiatic 
squadron has brought Jacky some words and ex- 
pressions which will seem strange to his friends and 
relatives at home. 

There are two big hotels in Hong Kong aside 
from the one up at the Peak. It has been a com- 
mon thing this week for Jacky to sleep and eat in 
them. He has not put his knife into his mouth, nor 
has he, in all cases, tucked his napkin Under his 
chin. He has not talked loudly, or in any way 
made himself obstreperous.. But no Jacky sought 
to go into the dining-room of the Peak Hotel. 
Everybody knew that the Admiral was there. 

"We'd walk in on a ship's company of foreign 
admirals in a public hotel," said "Jim" Johnson, 
"but not our Admiral or the Captain. That's 
against the spirit of the service." 

Tommy Atkins, of the garrison here, has been a 
partner in Jacky's joy. Tommy has spent what 
he had on the guest, and then the guest has paid 
the bills while the host showed him around. The 
basic relations of the dialects of a New York sea- 
man and a cockney soldier are such that they can 
understand each other without much difficulty, es- 
pecially when both are trying to use dignified lan- 
guage. 



68 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

"It's a bloomin' shame we gets only a bob a 
dav," said Tommy, "or we'd — w'at you call it?— 
blow you off 'andsome." 

As the "pals" sat on the fence around the parade 
ground Tommy learned all about how the battle of 
Manila Bay was won. 

This is the account of "JinT Johnson, corrected 
up to date : 

"We went into the bay as if we was afraid we'd 
wake the baby, and oh, Ombray, we was wide awake 
ourselves. We thought the dagoes would blow 
some of us up a-gettin' in, but they couldn't blow 
all of us up. It was kind of interestin' just to see 
which ship was going to draw the odd trick and 
miss the set-to. And when none of us was blowed 
up I said right off to the kiddies: 

" 'Spain ain't no maritime nation no more.' 

"Ombray, if you can't set a contact mine these 
days you better get out your white bandanna and 
have it ready. They had set 'em in twenty fathoms. 
You might as well hang your clothes out in a rain- 
storm to be ironed. The fishes is still playing 
with them mines. George Dewey was a busy man 
and he couldn't spare the time to pick old iron off 
the bottom of the ocean. We run out over 'em 
when we come home. Kind o' sad, the foolishness 



HONG KONG. 69 

of them Spaniards thinking we was going to run 
aground in twenty fathoms to set off their mines, 
wa'n't it? George Dewey's a polite man, but he 
ain't so damned polite as that. 

"I was disappointed. I wanted a scrap. It wa'n't 
nothing but sinkin' some derelicts. The dagoes 
was shooting back at us, but, oh, Ombray, they 
was shooting in the direction of Manila at the 
battle of Santiago. Every man to his game, and 
why should the Spaniard try to play it the same 
way we do? He didn't know that the only 
chance he had of hitting us was not to shoot 
at us. He kept on banging away aiming at us and 
going all around us till we sunk the whole outfit. 
Things had been a little noisier than target practice. 
That was all. We had some brains up on the bridge, 
Ombray. You make a big mistake if you leave 
that part out when you go into a fight. Brains 
keeps you from the sin of dying a brave death, and 
so you can go home, be called a hero and march 
under triumphal arches. Here we are without a 
scratch, strutting around and talking of the girls 
that's going to be marshalled up in squads of five 
to kiss when we get home, and not a Jack of us 
the worse for it, 'cepting one — must have a sou- 
vernir. And them poor Spaniards slipping round 



70 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

in blood — twenty men killed by one shell — and 
shooting into the air and going hungry back to 
Spain to get cussed for being licked. They 
had it in their hearts but not in their heads. After 
the scrap, we just stayed on board, just stayed on 
hoard, by G — ! The brains in the cabin knew what 
was needed, and we wasn't kicking." 

Leaves do not last long, however. Jacky is 
scarcely allowed to play for more than two days at 
a time. Then he must go back to the ship and give 
his comrades, who have stood guard while he is 
away, a chance. He came ashore in the ship's boat:; 
and he went back to the ship, as a rule, with a 
Chinaman at the helm, while the Chinaman's wife 
left her children and her household duties in the 
bow of the boat to bear him a hand. There are 
hundreds of these junks in the harbor of Hong 
Kong. At night they are all lighted with Chinese 
lanterns and they move about among the rows of 
electric lights which denote the decks of a steamer, 
like so many fireflies. The illuminated fleets 
with which we amuse ourselves at home 
are very unromantic beside the view of the har- 
bor of Hong Kong from the Peak Hotel where the 
Admiral from his window could identify the 
Olympia's lights. 



HONG KONG. 7 1 

Jacky will never cease to be amused by the ey-? 
which every boatman has painted on the bow of 
his craft, on the theory that "no have eye, no can 
see." ' 

"Don't you know it's very foolish?" "Jim" John- 
son asked one of them. 

"Yeh, me savee, velly foolish, but Chinee," was 
the imperturbable reply. 

To some members of the Olympia's crew New 
York will be a strange city. They are at home 
here. Among- them are Ah Ling, the Admiral's 
steward, and Ah Mah, the Admiral's house boy, 
who worship the ground their master walks on 
They are good examples of what can be made of a 
Chinaman with proper discipline and care. Every 
day Ah Ling goes ashore alone in a small boat and 
buys and bargains for the Admiral's table. Ah 
Mah keeps the Admiral's cabin in order and has his 
uniforms brushed and ready for him at a moment's 
call. The Admiral has become so attached to them 
that he thinks of taking them to Montpelier with 
him. Although this is in violation of the laws of 
the United States he expects that when the author- 
ities hear what he has to say they will look the 
other way as Ah Ling and Ah Mah step ashore. 
Ah Ling and Ah Mah passed ammunition until their 



72 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

fingers were sore, and grinned throughout the bat- 
tle. 

Hong Kong, June 7. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SINGAPORE. 

it is as plain that the Admiral did not intend 
to take the Governor-General of the Straits 
Settlements, Sir Charles Mitchell, by surprise as 
it is that Sir Charles was taken by surprise. 
Consul-General Pratt, who had found a quiet and 
available house by the seashore where a great man 
off duty might rest, pocketed his invitation to the 
Admiral when he heard of the Governor's plans. 
The Governor, by cable to Hong Kong, offered to 
the Admiral the hospitality of Government House, 
a grand mansion where punkas make breezes when 
they do not blow from the sea, as long as he choose 
to remain in Singapore; where he could be as se- 
cluded as he is in his cabin, or he could meet all offi- 
cial Singapore. 

The Admiral replied promptly. He thanked the 
Governor-General. 

Another thing that is plain is that the Governor 
has never been the correspondent of a newspaper at 
Manila. If he had he would have known that when 



74 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

the Admiral says "Thank you," it is very often the 
equivalent of "No, I thank you." 

"I suppose he means consent," remarked the Gov- 
ernor to the Consul. 

"I should think so," replied the Consul. 

There was no other way of looking at it, so far as 
official Singapore was concerned. Surely the Ad- 
miral would not put himself to the discomfort of re- 
maining aboard while the Olympia coaled. He 
could not go to the hotel as he had in Hong Kong, 
for Hong Kong has a reasonably good hotel. His 
refusal of all invitations there might not necessarily 
be taken as a precedent.. 

In his instructions as to supplies needed by the 
Olympia he had set Monday morning, the 12th, as 
the time of his arrival. The authorities made ar- 
rangements for his reception accordingly. Official 
society was in a little flutter of anticipation. Lead- 
ing officers and officials were to be on hand when he 
landed to inspect the Guard of Honor, while their 
wives and daughters were to look on from the 
eminence of traps in the background. 

His coming was a relief from the monotony of 
bearing the White Man's Burden, which consists in 
drawing one's salary, playing enough golf or polo 
to keep from getting a tropical liver, driving on the 



SINGAPORE. 75 

Esplanade in the evening and going to the club for 
tiffin (luncheon) and to read the Times when the 
mail comes in. 

On Sunday the ruling race go into the country. 
Only an occasional black or yellow man is seen in 
the streets of the business district, which is as Euro- 
pean in appearance as the residential portion is Ori- 
ental. A Puritan New England village is not more 
quiet. Last Sunday afternoon the only white man 
in the club was the steward, who, chancing to look 
through the telescope at three o'clock, threw up his 
hands and exclaimed : 

' Ton my soul, the Olympia's coming in now !" 

Here was a catastrophe which requires some ex- 
planation. It happened in this way : The Olympia 
is one of our fast cruisers, although the Admiral set 
her pace only at eleven to twelve knots from Hong 
Kong to Singapore, reckoning that at this rate she 
would arrive at Singapore at dawn of Monday. But 
in Hong Kong the tropical beard had been shaved 
off her hull and she had been painted white again. 
Out of sheer exuberance of spirits she began to 
break her schedule. 

"I'll have to slow down, sir," said Captain Lam- 
berton to the Admiral, " or else instead of reaching 



j6 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Singapore on Monday morning we shall be there 
Sunday afternoon." 

"Don't. There's no reason why we shouldn't get 
in on Sunday afternoon," said the Admiral. "Let 
her keep her pace." 

And she kept it. 

The Admiral is not yet aware of the consternation 
that the Olympia's zeal caused in official circles. If 
he were, the Governor-General's aide-de-camp 
would feel that all of his efforts had been in vain. 

Telephone messages were sent hither and thither 
from the club. Consul Pratt was roused from a nap ; 
the aide-de-camp was overtaken on his drive, and 
jumped into his uniform; the Captain of the Port 
hastened in from his country place. They breathed 
a sigh of relief to find that there was a launch in the 
harbor with steam up. The Consul was downright 
happy to think of what was in contrast with what 
might have been. He might have been at the other 
end of the island, a distance of sixteen miles, or 
he might have been across the strait visiting his 
friend the Sultan of Johore. 

The aide-de-camp, a young man reared on eti- 
quette, continued to worry. He stroked his budding 
mustache thoughtfully. It would be awkward if the 
Admiral were to come ashore privately for the night 



Singapore. yy 

and then go aboard, to come ashore again officially 
in the morning. But such problems as these develop 
young aide-de-camps and fit them for high places 

The three started for the Olympia just as she was 
swinging with the tide at the man-of-war anchorage. 
The Consul and the Captain of the Port had their 
high hats and white waistcoats on, and the aide-de- 
camp made sure again that his Chinese boy had 
brushed 'his uniform. When they returned the aide- 
de-camp was smiling. 

"It's all arranged beautifully," he said. "He's not 
coming ashore at all to-day, but at 10:30 in the 
morning, just as originally planned; and the Gov- 
ernor's to return his call at three. The Admiral's 
looking well and he is in good humor. Yes, the 
Admiral is fine." 

Sir Charles and the Consul were admittedly a lit- 
tle disappointed. For the Admiral, owing to the 
brevity of 'his stay and his health, had to forego a 
reception at the club planned by the Consul, as well 
as the hospitality of Government House. 

It is a pity the Admiral could not go to the club, 
for the club is a very quiet and satisfactory place. I 
think he would have enjoyed himself. Possibly he 
was of the same opinion. But aside from the reason 
of his health there is another for his determination 



yS GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

not to be lionized. He feels that it would be in poor 
taste for him to give his journey home any of the 
aspects of a junketing trip in foreign ports before 
his own people welcome him. What strength he has 
for receptions and banquets — it isn't much — he will 
husband for the United States. 

At 10:30 the next morning a line of fifty men of 
the King's Own Regiment were standing on the pier 
as a guard of honor, with a line of civil officials and 
leading citizens beside them. Major-General Dick- 
son, commanding the forces here, his aide-de-camp 
and the Governor's aide-de-camp were standing at 
the head of the gangway, while the Captain of the 
Port — for the guest must come into the harbor be- 
fore he sets foot on land — stood at the foot of the 
gangway on the float. 

Promptly to the minute the Admiral's launch ran 
up alongside the float. The Admiral, Captain 
Lamberton, Flag-Lieutenant Brumby, the Consul 
and Bob, the Admiral's pet dog, were on board. 

"I'm sorry that I can't take you with me," said 
the Admiral, giving Bob a pat, "but dogs are not 
allowed at official receptions." Then he sprang 
lightly on to the pontoon and grasped the hand of 
the Captain of the Port. This was the signal for 



SINGAPORE. 79 

the burst of a stave of a naval march from the band 
of the King's Own. 

At the head of the gangway the Major-General 
and his aide-de-camp were introduced to the Admi- 
ral, and there were introductions all around, notice- 
able for their lack of demonstration or affectation, 
which characterizes the Anglo-Saxon. 

The Admiral was dressed in the simple white 
uniform of the tropics, whose only insignia is the 
shoulder straps and gilt braid on the visor of the 
cap. He walked rapidly to the end of the pier, 
meanwhile raising his cap and bowing, and pausing 
an instant in his quick, short steps as he returned 
the salutes of the officers and the lifting of civilians' 
hats, all briskly and in half the time that the ordi- 
nary man of his age would require. 

If it were not that they were made so easily and 
naturally, the Admiral's movements would seem al- 
most abrupt. He is a nervous man. The British 
have observed that, which is as good as saying that 
they have observed that he is an American. They 
have also remarked his dignity and his fine man- 
ner. If you saw him on a quarter-deck you would 
have no doubt who was admiral of the fleet, or at 
least who ought to be. 

"A pukha sahib" (fine gentleman), said one 



8q GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

young officer. "Not all clever officers are pukha 
sahibs. It's better when they are." 

"Seems in a bit of a hurry to get through it. 
But I don't know as I blame him," said another. 

Reports of his ill health had preceded him. Ev- 
erybody had expected to see a sick man, and when 
they saw him they exclaimed that he looked very 
well indeed. The Admiral will always look well as 
long as he can stand on his feet, and his manners 
will be those of youth. Captain Lamberton says that 
perhaps the Admiral looks a little older and a little 
grayer than he did in May, 1898, but otherwise not 
the worse for wear. 

The colony might have changed its mind on the 
state of his health if it had known his diet. Instead 
of the four-course dinners which would seem to be 
in keeping with his well-fed appearance, he has been 
living for the last few days on rice almost exclusive- 
ly, which is a favorite prescription of the tropics 
when, as they say in the navy, "your rations go 
against you." 

At the entrance to the pier the Governor-Gen- 
eral's carriage was waiting with two Malay coach- 
men. The Sikh and the Malay police held the 
crowd back. It was the most polyglot crowd that 
can be collected anywhere in the world outside of 




ON THE WAY TO THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE, SINGAPORE 




SINGALESE BOATMEN 



SINGAPORE. 8 1 

Hong Kong. There was less difficulty in handling 
it than any crowd in any civilized country, not ex- 
cepting a tea party or the House of Representa- 
tives. The Malay, the Chinaman, or a member of 
any other race which flocks to Singapore, knows 
that his place is to keep behind the policeman and 
not get in the way of the Sahib's cart; moreover, 
he knows better than to find excuses for breaking 
the rule. The shop-keeping class and the half-caste 
clerks — all who may not belong to the clubs — were 
by themselves. They started to cheer. The offi- 
cers and the officials looked at them savagely, and 
the cheer died in their throats. That sort of thing 
is considered in very bad taste in the tropics. Offi 
cers and officials never cheer. The rest of the 
world is not supposed to cheer. This is good for 
the nerves and consoling for a tropical liver. 

So the Admiral called on the Governor, and the 
Governor called on the Admiral ; all official calls 
whatsoever being over and all port duties attended to 
by Monday evening. Then he was free to come 
ashore in the afternoon in his gray suit and Fedora 
hat and go for a drive as a private citizen. For 
practical purposes the Olympia is simply an Amer- 
can man-of-war cruising homeward, and there is 



82 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

not a single hero on board until she arrives in New 
York harbor. 

There is no denying that Admiral Dewey 
enjoyed himself very well in Singapore. Its 
official classes understand how to entertain a 
great man of quiet tastes. Before the Olympia de- 
parted, which she did this morning in a tropical 
rainstorm, they had so far brought him out of his 
shell that he stepped over the line which divides 
official courtesies from genuine sociability. 

Yesterday afternoon he gave an informal recep- 
tion on board the Olympia to a few favored folk 
of the town. The night before he was enticed to 
a farewell dinner at Government House. After 
coffee Lady Mitchell took him for a drive, while 
the Governor and Consul Pratt followed in a second 
carriage. 

The dinner was very simple, with only four pres- 
ent, which is the kind of dinner the Admiral likes. 
Probably Consul Pratt suggested the drive after- 
ward, knowing how fond the Admiral had become 
of the well-made roads out to the reservoir and in 
other directions, with overhanging tropical foliage 
and enlivened by native houses and the varying 
types of mankind on foot. 

At the Singapore Club they are saying that this 



SINGAPORE. 83 

is the first time a Governor-General of Her Maj- 
esty's Straits Settlements has condescended to go 
driving with a Consul. This he owes to the Ad- 
miral's warm heart, which rises above official eti- 
quette. For British Governor-Generals have to be 
more careful about what they do not do than about 
what they do. 

Such an innovation means a great deal 
to the Consul among the little circle of 
white men in a small protectorate who know 
one another and one another's business as well 
as if they were the residents of a four-cor- 
ners' village at home. His triumph will not last 
long, as his successor has just arrived. 

Poor Pratt has been as happy since that day as a 
Jacky in a rickshaw. Before the Admiral came, after 
eight years in the diplomatic service of his country, 
he was about to return home as a scapegoat. Al- 
though in Singapore he is the most popular Consul 
we ever sent here, at home there is an idea that he 
has been too friendly with Aguinaldo. Possibly he 
is slightly affected with Anglomania; possibly he 
was indiscreet. At all events, he was scrupulousiy 
honest in his intentions to serve the interests of his 
country according to such lights as he had in Singa- 
pore. He had the misfortune, too, of not foreseeing 



84 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

what nobody at home foresaw, which may and may 
not be disgraceful in an officer of an untrained con- 
sular service. 

When he sent Aguinaldo to Commodore Dewey 
we were thinking of the Philippines as a means of 
clubbing Spain into granting freedom to Cuba, and 
not as a territorial possession. Since Aguinaldo 
has been a thorn in our side, the Consul has borne 
the blame that was heaped upon him with the suffer- 
ing silence which is the weakness of a man of a 
non-combative nature. 

He only wished that his successor was already on 
hand in his place to go through the official cer- 
emonies of receiving the Admiral, and that he might 
escape to oblivion and his native State of Georgia. 
Dewey's skirts are clear of Aguinaldo, and Pratt 
supposed that the Admiral shared the opinion of 
the rest of the world of himself. At any rate, that 
would be "good politics" for the Admiral. 

So the Consul went on board the Olympia with 
his heart in his mouth, for it is known as far from 
Manila as Singapore that the Admiral can make a 
caller wish that he was among the fishes under the 
Olympia — anywhere except on her quarter-deck. He 
can also put a caller at ease in a moment. In less 
than that time Pratt's heart was back in its place. 



SINGAPORE. 85 

He recalled having met Pratt at a club in Wash- 
ington. When the Admiral received the invitation 
for the dinner, he said to Pratt: 
"Of course, you are coming with me." 
"No, I don't think that it was really intended that 
way." 

"Yes, it was. I want you. I can't go up there 
alone. Come along," the Admiral said in the man- 
ner he has of dismissing a subject and carrying 
everything before him. 

The Governor-General had postponed the date set 
for his departure on his annual tour of the Malay 
States in order, in the first place, to receive the Ad- 
miral, and, in the second place, to receive the King 
of Siam, who changed his mind at the last moment 
and deferred his visit. Sir Charles's yacht lifted 
anchor while the Admiral's farewell reception was 
in progress. It started straight on its course out in 
the Straits. Then somebody on board, perhaps Lady 
Mitchell, had a second thought. The yacht put 
about, and, steaming slowly around the Olympia, 
passed so near to her starboard bow that Sir Charles 
and Lady Mitchell could call out a final good-by 
to the Admiral, and the Admiral could wish them 
a pleasant voyage. 

But this reception did not take place while the 



86 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Olympia was being coaled, you may be sure. For 
the sake of the comfort of his men the Admiral 
ordered that the flagship should be coaled from 
lighters in the Straits instead of taking the easier 
and quicker way at the wharf. There is usually 
enough breeze blowing in the Straits to make sleep 
possible. At a wharf a berth on the Olympia would 
be an oven. 

By day those Jackies who had not permission to 
go ashore lay and lounged on the decks or leaned 
over the rail to watch the dismay of petty officers 
and stokers at the leisurely manner of the Indian 
and Chinese coolies who were carrying coal up to 
the bunkers in peck baskets. 

"They don't get any more rice or any bigger breech- 
clout for working harder, but I should think some 
of them would want to work harder just for the 
privilege of dying young," said a Jacky. 

The coal used was Japanese, and the Olympia's 
crew say it is the dirtiest coal that ever came out of 
a mine. It can turn any ship's crew into a negro 
minstrel show in an hour's time. Captain Lamberton 
apologized for the state of his hand upon extending 
it to you. 

But no black speck found its way into the Ad- 
miral's cabin, where he was reading the latest mail 



SINGAPORE. 87 

and newspapers from home. It is the care of every- 
body, from his orderly to Captain Lamberton, that 
the Admiral shall be comfortable. They regard him 
as a kind of treasure which they are bound to return 
to the people of the United States in good con- 
dition. 

Ships flying the flag of every nation and ships u* 
every kind are always at anchor in the harbor of 
Singapore — tramps on their way to the pearl fisher- 
ies; tramps seeking rice or hemp or cocoanuts or 
any tropical product as cargo for any port in the 
world ; battered steel vessels, remains of a past gen- 
eration which have survived their usefulness in the 
Atlantic trade and are now plying between Borneo 
and Sumatra and the other islands between China 
and the Indies, with white men for their masters 
and Lascars for their crews, looking for any busi- 
ness within the. law or without its reach. 

Beside them the Olympia appeared as a swan 
among ducks, only the Japanese coal had rather 
soiled one of the swan's wings, whicb was under 
the hose in a minute after coaling was finished. 

Jacky has seen many strange things in his service 
on the Asiatic Squadron. Nevertheless, Singapore 
appeared to him in the light of a circus which opens 



88 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

the eyes of the small boy from the country for the 
first time. 

You see the first of India and the last of Japan 
and China at Singapore. It is half way between 
Yokohoma and Aden and midway of the backbone 
of land, jutting down from Asia, which breaks off 
at the Straits of Malacca and reappears in Borneo, 
Sumatra and Java. Traders of every European 
nation are there, including the Dutch, who are car- 
rying the White Man's Burden near at hand in 
Java. When a black man with a mat, a pot of rice 
and a change of breechclout leaves his home any- 
where in Asia to seek his fortune in foreign parts, 
Singapore is usually his destination. A few white- 
faced members of the British colonial service are 
its keepers. Out of the babel of voices they bring 
a kind of harmony, while they bend the black, 
brown, yellow and mottled shoulders of the crowds 
in the streets to their will. 

Malay is the language of the country. Malay 
Sultans nominally rule, with British advisers pulling 
the strings of the automaton from behind the throne. 
Every youngster in the civil service must speak 
Malay; for the wise keeper makes it a point to know 
the language of the jungle, but does not care to have 
the jungle know his. The Hindu cabman or the 



SINGAPORE. 89 

Chinese rickshaw man may know a few words of 
Malay, but no English. 

The Major-General commanding the forces orders 
his luncheon at the club in Malay, while he speaks to 
the hall porter, who is Hindu, in Hindostanee. Eng- 
lish is the language of the gods; or, rather, it is the 
language of all who wear shirts. 

When the Chinese immigrant rises to a shop or 
an opium joint and becomes rich, he puts on a shirt 
and speaks English. One wants no covering night 
or day in Singapore. A shirt is a torturous penalty 
of caste like the corset. Probably one-eighth of one 
per cent, of the population has a shirt to fall back 
on in case of a funeral. The Malay wears his sar- 
ong, which falls to his knees, and the rest of the 
inhabitants are content with some kind of a loin 
cloth. All other Asiatic ports readily yield the 
palm to Singapore as being the nakedest port under 
civilized jurisdiction in the world. 

The Chinese seem to enjoy the personal liberty 
of the place immensely, and their ingenuity enables 
them to save more on clothes than any other race. 
It is they who carry the heavy burdens, who draw 
the rickshaws and go to the tin mines, which are the 
chief source of the exports of the Malay States, to 
slave for enough to gratify their appetites until an 



QO GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

early death overtakes them. They shared with the 
Indians the honor of taking Jacky back to the 
Olympia when his leave was up. 

"So far as I can make out," said a member of the 
Singapore Club, "all your Jackies ride in rickshaws 
your senior officers ride in gharries, and your junior 
officers start for the country on their bicycles. It 
isn't a rule of the ship, is it?" 

The "steerage," as the junior officers' mess is 
called, always enjoys life more than the wardroom. 
There is an unconfined gayety in the steerage and 
a freshness in its views of life which are quite 
human. The juniors are candid in telling one an- 
other their faults and equally quick to forget that 
anyone has given them a "roast." No responsibility 
of being dignified rests upon their shoulders. They 
can go over the sides to freedom when seniors have 
to go to receptions. The wardroom makes different 
beings of them. They are on watch then. The ex- 
ecutive officer sits at the head of the table and he is 
a family man by the time he is in the wardroom, 
too. Tropical livers are oftener the lot of the jun- 
iors than of the senior mess. Bicycles may have 
something to do with that. In Singapore the juniors 
mounted their bicycles and rode off into the coun- 
try without knowing much more about where they 



SINGAPORE. 91 

were going than Jacky did when he took a rick- 
shaw. They weren't afraid of sunstroke or of their 
collars wilting when they perspired, for they wore 
sweaters. 

The senior officers enjoyed the things served on 
the veranda of the club very much. The gharries 
in which they rode are very comfortable. A gharry 
resembles a hearse in shape. The proper thing is 
a gharry by day and a rickshaw at night ; but Jacky 
and the junior didn't see any good in a gharry 
at any time. 

The Jackies did not fare as well in the hotels as 
they did in Hong Kong. When four of them en- 
tered a dining-room the manager sent them away 
at the request of a Dutch officer. An American 
tourist had the manager call them back, and then 
told him to give them a dinner in a private room 
and charge that and the champagne to him. 

The reply of the spokesman for the Jackies made 
the American feel at home. 

"Hully gee ! but you're all right," he said. "We'll 
let you pay for the champagne, but we pay for the 
dinners, you bet." 

Singapore, June 13. 



CHAPTER V. 

COLOMBO. 

Her White Majesty, the Olympia, was six days in 
coming from Singapore to Colombo, when 
she might have come in four if the Ad- 
miral had said the word. He was not 
of the mind to say it, because he did not 
want the firemen or any other members of his 
crew to work harder than was compatible with that 
speed which means the most distance for the least 
coal and the least labor for all concerned. A cruiser 
will burn more coal in going a certain distance very 
slowly or very fast than she will at a moderate rate 
of speed. The exact happy medium of the Olympia 
is eleven or twelve knots. 

Withal, the Admiral loves the sea, and when you 
love the sea as a sailor loves it, just so surely as you 
look forward to land when you are out of sight of 
it, just so surely will you look forward to losing 
sight of it once you are on it. At heart you are 
really more at home on the sea than on land. The 
happy medium, here, is to go to sea when you are 



COLOMBO. 93 

tired of the land and to put into port when you are 
tired of the sea. That is the idea people have when 
they buy steam yachts, which are a source of bitter 
disappointment. They lack the characteristics, 
which is everything. You must be one of the toilers 
of the sea to enjoy it; you must have duties to 
perform both at sea and ashore. 

Personally, I take little stock in the Admiral's con- 
viction that his corner in the Metropolitan Club in 
Washington in winter, and the mountains of Ver- 
mont in summer will keep him happy andi con- 
tented for the remainder of his days. A 
year hence we shall see if he has changed 
his mind. The corner of the club, even 
Montpelier, will not be the same to the 
full Admiral that it was to the Captain or to 
the Commodore, though he thinks that they will. 
He will have visions of the quarter-deck, where 
there are no cablegrams, no mail, no letters of in- 
troduction. You will then understand what com- 
plete rest it is to him to be at sea in good weather 
now after thirteen months in the harbor of Manila. 

From Singapore to Colombo the Olympia faced 
the monsoon. As the Admiral knew before he start- 
ed on the journey, the monsoon is a work of the 
Lord or a work of the devil, or a great deal of both. 



g4 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

It is a work of the Lord when it is blowing three or 
four miles an hour in the opposite direction from 
which the vessel is going. Then there is always 
a breeze blowing the length of the deck. If you sit 
under the awning and imagine that you are not in 
the tropics you will escape prickly heat and be quite 
comfortable. The monsoon is a work of the devil 
when it goes in the same direction and at about the 
same rate that a vessel is traveling. That means a 
dead calm on board. From above and below, 
through the awnings and out of the bowels of the 
ship, from the distance where the leaden sea meets 
the heat-flushed sky, the hot air presses upon you. 
Alas for you, if you think that you are the sole 
object of its enmity. You go from place to place 
hoping to escape from the centue of its force, 
to play it a trick to find some little draught, 
if not a breeze, with which to defy it- 
But you only flounder about with the 
helplessness of one in burning quicksand. 
You give up the fight; you give up walking first 
to the stern and then to the bow. After your energy 
is expended you lie at length in those long cane 
chairs which the Asiatic makes and is glad to sell 
for five dollars "Hex" to ease the White Man's 
Burden; and you nurse your prickly heat and wait 



COLOMBO. 95 

until your ship passes into latitude and longitude 
where the Lord lays His hand on the monsoon and 
bids it to give up to Him some of the devil's part; 
to grant His people respite from suffering. The 
monsoon is the work of both the Lord and the devil 
when it is blowing at the rate of thirteen knots an 
hour in an opposite direction to that of the vessel, 
which bobs up and down like a cork on a fishline 
that has a bite at the end of it. The decks are 
wet; Lascars cannot keep the little rivulets, pro- 
jected by a lunge and then left without a source, 
scraped into the sewers as fast as they come. The 
sticky tropical spray — which makes your clothes 
go mouldy in a day; which has never been frozen 
and disciplined — goes down the back of your neck 
to meet more spray coming up your trousers' legs. 
If you try to walk up to the bow yo ulook down to 
see if you are not walking on stairs which are falling 
away from you like the steps of a treadmill. 
The seasick ones wish they were in the oven again, 
and they who are prompt at meals enlarge on how 
hot it would be if it weren't for that fine institution, 
the monsoon. That is, all in all, the monsoon, and 
whether a curse or a blessing, is always the mon- 
soon. 

The monsoon was a work of the Lord from Co- 



q6 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

lombo to Singapore, as it always is this time of the 
year. For the whole journey the weather, to beings 
with blood thinned by the tropics, was what the sail 
to Manhattan Beach is to the tired New Yorker, but 
bound to become Broadway again as soon as the 
Olympia passed under the lea of the land mto a 
tropical harbor. The Admiral's comfortable chair 
on the after-deck, by a little shifting, always caught 
enough and not too much breeze. Meanwhile he 
had good books to read. He had been supplied with 
some material on the government of the Straits 
Settlements, by Sir Charles Mitchell. As a member 
of the President's Commission, as an American citi- 
zen whose country had on its hands a rebellion of 
Tagalogs, who are of Malay stock, he was interested 
to know the reasons for the success of the British 
in governing this most peculiar people. 

In coming out of the Straits in a heavy mist and 
rain, the navigator, Mr. Laird, for the first time had 
a bit of navigation worthy of his steel. As he had 
never been there before, and it is a pretty rocky 
place, even Laird had to watch his points a little. 
If she wished to feel her way she could afford the 
time. Her maximum speed on the journey was 
ten knots, and although the slow passenger steamer 
on which I took passage started two hours after her 



COLOMBO. 97 

and went out of the direct course in order to stop 
at Penang, we anchored inside the breakwater at 
Colombo only an hour after her. The breakwater, 
over which the waves whipped up by the monsoon 
dash with spectacular bursts of spray, gives to Co- 
lombo, the chief port of the island of Ceylon, which 
on the map hangs pendant from India as a jewel 
from a lady's ear, an artificial harbor. As it is 
necessarily small, the vessels line up like troops at 
parade on either side of an imaginary roadstead. In 
the roadstead the boatmen who carry passengers and 
the lighters which carry freight go and come, keep- 
ing to the left according to English custom. The 
Olympia took her place beside the buoy reserved 
for her at eight o'clock. One of the first things I 
learned about Colombo was that the Eastern Tel- 
egraph Company, which carries all news from the 
Philippines to the United States, is no factor in the 
life of the community as it is at Hong Kong and 
Singapore. The Government here is supreme. It 
is the telegraph which plays a most important part 
in keeping natives in order by the assistance it gives 
in the rapid mobilization of troops. I was as unused 
to the methods of the telegraph office as the clerks 
were to having cablegrams to New York papers 
handed in at the counter. Colombo gets about 



98 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

twenty or thirty words of European news a day, 
which is printed in all the papers. When the mon- 
soon does not behave properly toward the crops, or 
a vessel is wrecked, the local correspondents put 
a message on the wire. Sometimes they send as 
many as ten a year. No wonder the editors in Lon- 
don are forever complaining that no colonial corres- 
pondent can have the fact that his is not the only 
colony in the Empire drummed into his head. Using 
the telegraph as a whip to keep the natives in line, 
the Government proceeds, as it usually does, to make 
the whip out of native material. All the clerks are 
natives. Only the handle of the whip is English. 
One undemonstrative white man in a big, sacred 
room upstairs in the solidly constructed building, is 
the handle. He is a good fellow as well as a good 
handle. If there had been any way of extending 
the press rate to an American who believes that 
blood is thicker than water, he would have done it. 
He knew the story of Sir Edward Chichester's reply 
to Admiral Von Diedrichs, which had been told and 
retold in every English club in the Far East. It was 
a pity, he said, that anything about so fine a man as 
the Admiral should go at the business rate of seven 
rupees a word. He even sounded Calcutta to see 
if some concessions could not be made. Calcutta 



COLOMBO. 99 

replied that it had rules, and it had not yet begun 
to make exceptions to any of them. Then he thought 
of telegraphing to Calcutta that I said that blood 
was thicker than water, and was restrained only by 
the fear that Calcutta might reply that they knew 
of the manager of a Department who was thicker 
still. 

My grief at paying seven rupees a word was in 
part atoned for by the number of stamps the clerk 
gave me for a receipt. Stamps for the amount of 
the cost of the telegram are placed across the top 
of the form and then are cut in two, you getting 
half to assure yourself that the Government hasn't 
cheated you and the Government getting half to 
assure itself that the native hasn't cheated the 
Government. The native holds these picture re- 
ceipts in awe where he wouldn't have much respect 
for a written one. A pair of creaking old shears, 
used for cutting the stamps, were handled by the 
executioners with as much care as if they were 
setting the mainspring of a watch. The Parsees, the 
Chitties and the Singapore clerks who were waiting 
for my large order to be finished were regarded 
with an occasional glance of august pride, and then 
the shears squeaked a little harder. As I stepped 
away from the window I was accosted by a Cinga- 



IOO GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

lese in European garb, who held up a huge note 
book with pencil poised over it while he contem- 
plated me through glasses of an owlish size. He 
had been educated in the English school, and the 
sahib who conducted one of the local papers had 
furnished that large note book as a desideratum in 
arranging his pay for going forth into the world to 
seek information. He seemed to want my impres- 
sions of the world in general, and began to write 
them down without saying a word. 

Colombo has almost as many newspapers as New 
York. All print that same daily twenty words of 
news from the seat of Empire, where the white sa- 
hib's heart is while his body is holding out against 
the ravages of a tropical climate so that there will 
be enough left of it to enjoy the pension when his 
term of service is done. The sahibs read these 
twenty words in bulletins at their offices, at the bar- 
racks and at the tea garden, and then read them all 
over again in the papers at home. This, if you know 
how, can be made almost an equivalent of having 
the Times in the morning. 

On the day of the Admiral's arrival the papers 
published column upon column of accounts of the 
battle, copied by the native reporters from old files 
of the London papers, and accounts of the Dewey 



COLOMBO. IOI 

Day celebration in New York as told in the one 
American daily received at our Consulate. A paper 
with a half-tone portrait of the Admiral was offered 
to me by a native newsboy the moment that I stepped 
on shore. 

None of the twenty words of the daily budget 
of news came from the East. So the acting Gov- 
ernor of Ceylon had received no hint of the pre- 
cedent the Admiral had established in Hong Kong 
and Singapore. Like the Governors of Hong Kong 
and Singapore, he thought that an Admiral who was 
recruiting his health certainly would not put himself 
to the discomfort of remaining on board the flagship 
in the face of invitations to cool places ashore. Sev- 
enty miles back in the mountains, connected with 
Colombo by rail, is Kandy, the residence of the Gov- 
ernor and the resort of the well-to-do in the hot 
season. A special train was to take the Admiral 
out to Kandy, where he was to be the Governor's 
guest as soon as he had paid the usual official call at 
Government House in town, which was occupied 
only by his servants until Captain Wyndham, his 
aide-de-camp, came to escort the Admiral out to 
Kandy. Some little criticism on the acting Governor 
was passed. It was thought that, under the cir- 
cumstances, he ought to have put aside all formali- 



102 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

ties and escorted the Admiral to Kandy in person. 

Captain Wyndham was the third attache to have a 
programme taken from under his feet by a few 
polite words of the Admiral. When he came ashore 
he had the order for the special train out to Kandy 
cancelled at once. Meantime, the Admiral ordered 
rooms at the Colle Face Hotel, which faces the sea 
at the end of a pleasant esplanade running along the 
shore a mile beyond the town. For, tell it not to the 
marines, the hotel at Colombo was sixty miles from 
the Governor-General's summer home; at Singa- 
pore the hotel had been a little nearer the flagship 
than Government House. 

After the aide-de-camp, the Consul of the United 
States went on board. Forever the Consul. He calls 
on an Admiral first, but a Captain must call on him 
first. What was the loss of the mayors between San 
Francisco and New York was the gain of the gen- 
tlemen who sign finances for us in Asiatic ports 
and lend their papers to American globe trotters 
who promise to return them and never do. The 
Admiral's secretiveness about his plans led to all 
kinds of rumors about his itinerary which I judge 
were conveyed on ahead of him by passengers on 
the P. and O. and the French Mail from Hong Kong 
who wanted to be entertaining. At Bombay prep 



COLOMBO. IO3 

arations were actually made for his reception, and 

even the Consul at Calcutta once thought that all 
the reflected glory would not fall solely on Hong 
Kong and Singapore. Some of our Asiatic Consuls 
allow themselves extravagances which their sal- 
aries would not permit of in civilized countries. For 
official occasions they have dragomen dressed up in 
red, white and blue, with patches of stars here and 
there, who follow them at two paces. Otherwise, 
they would be in bad form. The Consul at Co- 
lombo has no dragoman. However, he has a Cinga- 
lese wife, whose standing in white society is not so 
high as it is among her own people. Whenever 
people in Colombo speak of the Consul, they wonder 
why, and then let the matter drop along with the 
Consul. The arrival of the Admiral recalled his 
existence to the town. He has grown old and with- 
ered in his post. Nobody at home who had done 
any work for either political party has ever applied 
for the Consulate to Colombo. His blood is so thin 
that an autumn frost in New England would freeze 
him to death, I think. The first day of the Admiral's 
visit was the greatest one of the old gentleman's of- 
ficial career. He put on a high hat and a long-tailed 
coat, and tried to be calm. 

Captain Wyndham arranged the official landing 



104 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

for eleven o'clock. In respect to form, it was the 
same as it was at Singapore ; the same as it is at any 
port. Only Ceylon is a greater and richer colony 
than the Straits Settlements or Hong Kong, 
with the resources to receive an admiral 
with more aplomb than its neighbor. It has 
the soldiers, for example. The Highland 
Light Infantry was not made of clay to-day 
or yesterday. They bore the marks of each 
year of a drill sergeant's knocks which they had 
undergone, as surely as a ram bears his age on his 
horns. Their seven years' service was almost up; 
it was almost time for them, having learned how 
to be soldiers, to be turned out of the army. 
Thank Heaven, we treat our regulars better. 
Their pride of regiment is their trousers, with 
checks about four inches square. As long as they 
continue to wear white tunics and white helmets 
I shall like their trousers. 

The band at Singapore was in kharkee. A band 
in kharkee on the battlefield, where a band is really 
in the way, nowadays, would look very well. At an 
official reception it simply looks as if it did not know 
how to play. Besides, there was a more import- 
ant comparison for spectacular purposes between 
Singapore and Colombo. The footman and the 



COLOMBO. IO5 

coachman of the Governor's carriage at Singapore 
were little Malays in red and blue liveries with a 
shell-top hat. The Governor's footman at Colombo 
had no head covering. It would have hidden from 
the view of his countrymen the largest tortoise shell 
comb in Ceylon, which he wore in his back hair. 
His raiment? The Cingalese know not of Solomon. 
To them the coachman is, as he was to me, the 
most gorgeous being that ever lived. He 

was selected, originally, because of his size 
and his lordly manner. With all the cocoa- 
nut oil he wanted to eat, as well as all he 
wanted to rub on his hair, his importance has 
gradually increased. The footman was only a little 
less gorgeous than the coachman. 

Without planning it so, the officials made the 
Admiral's landing a fine piece of theatricalism. Be- 
tween the little plaza in front of the leading hotel 
and the pier a new building was in course of con- 
struction. An alleyway of high boardings to one 
side of the new building led from the pier to the 
plaza. The builder, who put a sharp turn in the 
alleyway just before it opened into the plaza, was 
unconsciously a stage manager. As the Admiral, 
Captain Wyndham and Lieutenant Brumby 



IC>6 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

came up the alley, the Captain apologized for the 
surroundings. 

"Never apologize for improvements," the Admiral 
replied. 

At this moment they were in the turn of the alley, 
and the next step brought them into the plaza. The 
Admiral had come as suddenly upon the scene there 
as it had burst upon him. It was two minutes after 
eleven. The Admiral's launch had touched the 
pier at just eleven, and two minutes had been con- 
sumed in greeting Captain Wyndham and in their 
walk the length of the pier and up the alley. At 
one minute before eleven, the Governor's carriage 
had swung around fifty yards from the mouth of the 
alley, and at the end of the palings of the new build- 
ing facing the plaza. Back of it were some native po- 
lice. The door of the carriage was open, the broad 
step down. That gorgeous footman stood erect with 
his hand on the door. The coachman was a motion- 
less prism of color shown off by the steady light 
of a fair day in the tropics. 

At ten minutes before eleven the guard of fifty 
men of the Highlanders, with the band in front, had 
come into the plaza. This gave them time enough 
to order arms, to dress up, to stand at ease, to allow 
the officers to call Smith or Jones to task because 



COLOMBO. I07 

he was out of alignment as much as the breadth of 
a typewritten letter, and to wipe the perspiration off 
their faces and hands with the handkerchief which 
is drawn out of the breast of the tunic ; that is, time 
enough to settle them for their part. Their line, two 
deep, began at the other end of the little tea house 
which was at the end of the alley as you came 
out of it. The band extended from their 
right up even with the carriage. The mathematics 
of the thing could not have been better if it had been 
laid out in chalk on the ground. 

At the moment the Admiral appeared you could 
have stretched a line and touched the musket of 
every one of these veteran troops who were once 
'Arries of clay. In front of them was a statue hold- 
ing the colors of the regiment, planted on the 
ground. Behind the troops were the natives, slim, 
small, effeminate people with their long hair brushed 
back from their foreheads. That deference to the 
native love of finery in the gaudiness of the coach- 
man suggested how the British on the one hand 
pander to the tastes and the prejudices of the na- 
tives ; the line of statues with their Lee-Mitfords 
was the other side of the explanation of how a 
hundred thousand men govern three hundred mil- 
lions in India. 



108 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

This was what the Admiral saw. What they saw 
was an exceedingly well preserved man of sixty, 
robust and well proportioned, not more than five 
feet seven inches in height, erect as that statue of 
a color bearer himself, and wearing an undress white 
uniform. That is, they saw the real Admiral, whom 
we knew in Manila. Neither in full dress nor in 
blue undress is he so handsome as in the suit of duck 
for which he paid a Chinese tailor in Manila five 
dollars. He stepped with a graceful step. While a 
naval stave burst from the band he and the officers 
of the Guard stood at salute. Then he went 
to meet the officers, and they came to meet him. 
There was the touch of languor in their walk which 
is supposed to be the proper thing in a ruling race; 
the Admiral's walk had that suggestion of nervous 
energy which demonstrated beyond doubt that he 
was not, as some of the natives thought, a new 
Governor-General of the colony, but a fellow citizen 
of yours and mine. A fine body of drilled men is the 
apple of his eye. His delight with the Highland 
Light Infantry showed itself in his face. As he 
walked along the line he said some pleasant things 
which will be long remembered in the barracks, 
where the Yankee Admiral is now as popular as he 
is in the officers' mess. 



COLOMBO. I09 

The sahibs who piant tea or trade in tea, who play 
their part in governing a colony from offices rather 
than barracks ; in fine, all the sahibs who wear civil- 
ian clothes, as well as some of their wives and 
daughters, were standing in the tea house or near 
it. I was among them and listened to their remarks. 

"Not quite tall enough for a soldier," said a 
woman at my side, "but just the right height for a 
sailor. Yes, he's just the idea of what a sailor of 
sixty should be — not too fat and not too thin ; per- 
fectly groomed from head to foot; dignified and 
urbane, but with some of the dash of sea spray in 
his manner." 

''Smart, I must say. Smart enough to be a caval- 
ryman" (very critically through a subaltern's eye- 
glass). 

"I always have been in favor of the Anglo-Saxon 
alliance" (stubborn old tea planter). 

"Thought he was an old man. Not more than 
fifty, I should say. But then a man's old in America 
at that age" (from an elderly man). 

"They said he was sick. He's awfully spry for a 
sick man" (from the companion of the subaltern). 

"Seems in a bit of a hurry to get through it. Very 
graceful, though. Don't blame him. Must be a 
bore" (again through the eye-glass). 



I io GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

"Such as he and such as ours against the whole 
world" (tea planter again). 

"Certainly most handsome and prepossessing" 
(from a clergyman). 

It is not supposed to be the right thing for the 
sahibs of a British colony to cheer, but a woman 
in a trap started it as she exclaimed "He's lovely !" 
and a fusillade of clapping of hands followed just as 
the Admiral was stepping into the carriage. He 
raised his cap and smiled. The gaudy footman closed 
the door and stepped up onto the box beside the 
coachman, who let out his whip with a sharp crack. 
The policemen made way for the carriage, and it 
moved off toward Government House with the 
troops following and the band playing. 

After the crowd had dispersed I looked for the 
appearance of the second landing party, which I had 
come to expect as a matter of course. Directly 
"Bob" came into the plaza dragging Robinson, of 
the Admiral's launch, after him. The official call 
was finished with due prompitude, and then the 
autocrat of the ship had his master to himself again. 

Every paper, that afternoon, had a column and 
a half or a two-column editorial welcoming the Ad- 
miral in the name of what he had done and in the 
name of the Anglo-Saxon alliance. Englishmen in 



COLOMBO. Ill 

the colonies can appreciate as Englishmen at home 
cannot, the meaning of the power of another navy 
added to her own in preserving what she holds by 
dominion of the sea. 

Ceylon knew which side its bread was buttered 
on in more senses than one. Ceylon takes tea with 
its bread and butter, and it wants all America to 
do the same; at least, to drink Ceylon instead of 
Japanese tea. A brand of "Dewey Tea" was an ad- 
vertisement for "The States" which awakened the 
liveliest anticipations in the minds of the Ceylon 
planters. Captain Wyndham told the Admiral that a 
delegation of them wished to wait on him in order 
to pay their respects. The Admiral replied that he 
would receive them on the Olympia after he had 
returned from the official landing. 

The deputation went off in the Government 
launch. Its spokesman was a most dignified gentle- 
man with nothing of the solicitor of advertising in 
his bearing. He began his speech with the custom- 
ary "Ahem" and a number of digressive sentences. 
Then he settled down to a description of the meri f .« 
of Ceylon tea in the august phraseology of the 
Houses of Parliament. 

As he put it, there could be no doubt that tea — 
Ceylon tea — and not Lord Kitchener whipped the 



112 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Dervishes. Did not Lord Kitchener and all his men 
drink it? Finally, he presented the Admiral with a 
silver casket, a most elaborate address and also one 
thousand pounds of Ceylon tea, so there could be 
no doubt for the health of the Admiral and his men 
for the remainder of the voyage. 

In reply the Admiral rather belied the opinion of 
Lieutenant Brumby that he could not make a speech. 
He talked very naturally and easy, just as he would 
on the quarter deck to some friends, which, if not 
oratory, is a good deal better than some oratory. 
He thanked them for the tea; he spoke to them of 
Sir Edward Chichester's good deeds in Manila 
Bay. The casket was very beautiful. It should re- 
main on his table in memory of the hospitality of 
this port. 

Ah Ling, the Admiral's steward, was a little wor- 
ried for the moment. He had no faith in the tea 
of these foreign devils who do their long hair up 
with combs instead of wearing it in a pigtail. What 
he feared was the effect of the soft words of the 
foreign devils of mandarins on such a great and 
good man as the Admiral. He brewed the new tea 
and set it before the Admiral and awaited results. 
The Admiral told him to go on using the tea which 
he "catchee" for his master in Hong Kong. 



COLOMBO. 113 

"Me savey clasket," said Ah Ling. "Me no havee 
clasket. Me havee tea." 

The prejudice of Ah Ling against Ceylon had 
a solid basis. The westward immigration of the 
Chinese meets its Waterloo. Chinamen have come 
here, but they have turned back. The competition 
of the Indian was too much for them. They bowed 
before the first equal they had met on their own 
ground and retired. Cingalese draw the rickshaws, 
which the Jackies are not to see again in any port ; 
Cingalese are the boatmen; Indians bear the bur- 
dens. It was the last opportunity of the Jackies 
to ride in rickshaws, and they made the most of it. 
Rickshaws end at Colombo, and carriages begin at 
Aden. The worst horse-drawn vehicles in the world 
are at Aden, and the worst rickshaws in the world 
are at Colombo. Carriages improve as you go west- 
ward until they arrive at comparative perfection in 
the hansom cabs of London and New York; and 
rickshaws improve as you go eastward until they 
arrive at comparative perfection in Japan. By their 
long hair all of these Cingalese ought to be Samsons. 
As a matter of fact, two or three of them have not 
the strength of one short-haired Jap. Jacky had 
compassion on the Cingalese rickshaw puller, and 
changed "horses" often. As at Hong Kong, the sel- 



114 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

ler of curios stood by to make a victim of him; but 
thinking of what he had already put him on 
his guard. He spent 'his money on the snake charm- 
ers. 

In order to be on hand for his arrival 
at Port Said — the instructions from my paper 
said arrivals — I had to leave Colombo so 
soon after the Admiral's arrival at Col- 
ombo that I saw little of him there. He took 
up his residence at the Colle Face Hotel, had 
a carriage ride every afternoon; walked on the es- 
planade in the early morning; chatted with the 
guests on the piazza after dinner, and grew stronger 
every day. While his officers enjoyed the hospital- 
ity of the messes, he accepted few invitations. 
Colombo, June 25. 



CHAPTER VI. 



TRIESTE. 



Incident crowds on incident illustrating why 
his officers love the Admiral; why whoever 
meets him and speaks with him for a few 
minutes falls under his spell. I will not relate them 
in order. Any one is good enough for the top of the 
basket. 

"When every wardroom officer and fifty of the 
men were sick with fever," said one of the officers, 
"the Admiral used to make inquiries about us by 
name every day of the doctor. The monsoon was 
at its worst ; my fever was at its worst. I was lying 
on my back in my room as blue as the little devils 
could make me when Ah Ling, the Admiral's stew- 
ard, came to my door with a glass and a bottle of 
port. 'Admilal say you dlink this; velly old; velly 
good; Admilal say you dlinkee all you want.' Per- 
haps it was not entirely the port ; perhaps it was the 
thought, when I was just thinking I hadn't many 
friends, that the great man in the Admiral's cabin 
had remembered me as he remembered every othei 



Il6 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

officer in one way or another — at any rate, I got 
better at once. 

"I was up on deck the next morning. He beamed 
when he saw me, as if he had fallen heir to a fortune. 

" 'How do you like my medicine?' he asked. 

" 'It cured me,' I said. 

" 'Good ! Good !' he said." 

"I want to get the Admiral's autograph," said a 
member of the junior mess. "But I haven't the 
nerve to ask him for it. I'd ask any other ad- 
miral in the navy, and yet he's the simplest 
of them all, I'm sure. He loves us, and 
we love him. I know he would give 
me the autograph in a minute. I believe 
he would be surprised to hear that I daren't 
ask him. His very thoughtfulness for you, the joke 
he passes with you on deck — they only make you 
fear that you may presume. I would rather lose 
twenty numbers than have him think that I didn't 
know my place. Love is often mixed with fear; 
and we are just a little afraid of him. To us he is on 
as high a pinnacle as he is to those at home who 
have read of his victories and formed certain ideals. 
He did not put himself there. We put him there. 
It is his natural and proper place." 

"Now I'm going to the hotel for two nights while 




THE ADMIRAL AND HIS CHOW DOG •'BOB." TAKEN AT MIRAMAR, 
THE SEAT OF MAXIMILIAN BEFORE HE WENT TO MEXICO 




TRIESTE. 117 

she is coaling," the Admiral said to his orderly. 
"Have a good time ashore. Take care of yourself 
and don't get sick. None of us is too strong after 
all the work we did in Manila." 

Those proud beings who man his launch, and 
to my knowledge have never been as much as two 
minutes late in taking the Admiral to meet an en- 
gagement, were told to tie the barge up to the quay 
for the night. While one took his turn on guard, 
the others had liberty. 

"We ain't kicking at all," was how the fat en- 
gineer of the barge put it. "And if we was going 
to kick, the only kick we've got coming is that the 
Admiral's been too good to us. We was thinking 
what a lot of money we'd have to spend in New 
York till the Admiral gave us so much leave that 
we spent it all having that good time he told us to 
have. We always obey orders. It's been a good 
time, you bet." 

You have heard by cable all about the dinner 
which Minister Harris gave to the Admiral and the 
officers of the Olympia at the Hotel de la Ville, 
and the dinner which the Admiral gave in return 
on board. You have heard even more if you have 
read the accounts of what passed as written by those 
wonderful beings, the Viennese journalists. The 



Il8 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Minister and the Consuls to Austro-Hungary were 
here and ready to receive the Admiral three days 
before he arrived. The Minister's first ambition 
was to give the Admiral a banquet. His second 
was to take the x\dmiral to Austrian watering-places 
and introduce him to Franz Josef at the Em- 
peror's summer residence, Isohl. The first of these 
ambitions was gratified, the second was not. Rail- 
road travel in hot weather is not rest. As yet, a full 
admiral of the United States navy does not 
trot off across the country to get an audience with 
an Emperor before it has been arranged, the cir- 
cumstances being such as they were at this time. 
If the Emperor had been near at hand and an 
Austrian of high place or rank had made the sug- 
gestion the situation would have been different. It 
is on such occasions as this that the Admiral always 
sees the point. He is considerate for one who does 
not. His noes are always put with that same care 
which he observes in respecting the feelings of a 
Minister Plenipotentiary or one of the seamen on the 
Olympia. He never forgets in formal relations with 
foreign nations that the man who wears four stars 
on his shoulder is one of the citizens of the United 
States who, officially, have the keeping of the dig- 
nity of the nation in their hands. 



TRIESTE. 119 

Most of the speeches made at the banquet seem 
to have been variously reported as having been the 
Admiral's. He was the only person present who did 
not make one and would not have wanted it re- 
ported if he had. All the speakers told him that 
he won the battle of Manila Bay, and that be was 
a hero. It was the only thing to do; and they did 
it as well as it is usually done on such occasions. 

Minister Harris has been told that he resembles 
Bismarck. He is a fine specimen of the Western 
American, six feet in height, without any spare 
flesh, and he made a handsome figure as 
he held up a glass of champagne to welcome 
the Admiral upon what was for the moment 
the soil of the United States as a peroration to his 
speech. Now, the Admiral, who was expected to 
tell them how he won the battle of Manila Bay, 
thanked the Minister in a few well-chosen phrases. 
Then he sat down and winked to Captain Lamber- 
ton. The Captain knew as well as he knows the 
Admiral that some officer was in for it. 

"As for the battle," the Admiral said, turning to 
his private secretary, "ask Mr. Caldwell ; he kept 
the record." 

"I have learned under the tutorship of Admiral 
Dewey that silence is golden. I only know that he 



120 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

won the battle of Manila Bay," said Mr Caldwell. 

"Very promising young man" (as the Admiral 
often says of his secretary). 

"Then Chief Engineer Bailey might tell you. I 
cannot say 'how much we owe to him," the Admiral 
continued. "I had only to say the word, and he 
would change the speed of the Olympia from ten 
to eighteen knots." 

If the Chief had had his engines present he could 
have made a fine speech. As it was, his speech was 
the best of proof that he is a good engineer. Would 
you like to trust your life in the hands of an engineer 
who is a speechmaker? 

It was eleven o'clock when the Admiral said that 
he thought it was time to go; and all the uniforms 
around the table arose automatically at the same 
moment as he. There followed the felicitations 
which go with good-nights. Then in the order of 
their rank — a fine-looking group in the evening 
dress of the navy — they descended the stairs by 
twos, the youthful faces of the ensigns appearing on 
the balcony just as the Admiral and Captain Lam- 
berton set foot on the bottom stair. 

The Admiral inquired for the manager of the 
hotel. Having thanked Minister Harris, he did not 
forget the engineer of the dinner any more than he 



TRIESTE. 121 

ever forgets the services of the engineer of the 
Olympia. The manager of the hotel, a type of his 
kind in his country, started to bow till his head was 
on a level with the lowest button on the Admiral's 
waistcoat. But he found himself shaking hands 
with the x\dmiral instead. 

"I have to thank you for your very nice arrange- 
ments this evening," he said. "It was a good dinner 
and well served." 

Admirals in Austria are not so affable. All the 
manager's skill and energy had been devoted to this 
dinner. He was tired with drumming his plans into 
the heads of the waiters and arguing with his cook ; 
for such dinners are not given often in the modest 
Hotel de. la Ville. To receive in person the thanks 
of His Excellency was to make him happy for a 
week and give him an incident which he could 
joyously recall as he twirled his thumbs before he 
fell asleep after luncheon for the rest of his life. 

If the dinner had been half an hour late and the 
Admiral had been giving it — well ! You must 
know the Admiral pretty well, yourself, by this 
time. 

While the Olympia was coaling the Admiral and 
Mr. Brumby came ashore, and lived at the hotel. 
Ah Mah came with them, and was a source of great 



122 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

curiosity to the German maids at the hotel. Both 
Ah Mali and Ah Ling, the steward, have been fol- 
lowed about in the streets by little crowds, for 
Chinese immigrants have not found their way to 
Trieste. 

"What do you think of Trieste?" the Admiral 
asked Ah Mah. 

"No speakee English," said Ah Mah, with great 
disgust. 

That amused the Admiral immensely. 

After his coffee and before his breakfast he left 
the hotel for a little walk about the streets. No 
one would have recognized him if he had not been 
followed by a small army of snapshot photographers. 
When he went into a shop to make some purchases 
he came out to find cameras sticking out of windows 
in all directions and quite a crowd gathered. He 
made a little gesture of despair, turned down a side 
street and escaped. In the evening he went out to 
the cafe with Captain Lamberton. They listened 
to the band playing in the plaza and drank coffee 
Trieste fashion. 

The presence of the Admiral means a great deal 
of expense to the Consul as well as glory. He want- 
ed, however, to give to the Admiral a little luncheon 
which would be within his means. When he 



TRIESTE. 123 

broached the subject, the Admiral said : "I would 
rather you wouldn't. I know that our Consuls are 
not provided with any funds for entertainment pur- 
poses, and your salaries are not large. It would be 
a waste of money. Come for a drive with me this 
afternoon instead." 

The Martinis here are very simple people who live 
in a small flat. There is Mrs. Martini, a daughter, 
and the son, who is the breadwinner of the family. 
Of Italian parentage they were long residents of 
Brooklyn, and by naturalization are Americans. Miss 
Martini, a tall brunette, has no rival to the claim of 
being the only American girl in Trieste. In the 
company of Consul Hossfeld and the other Consuls 
she went in the afternoon of the first day to call 
upon the Admiral in what might be called her official 
capacity. She was carrying a great bunch of 
flowers. 

"What shall I say when I give them to the Ad- 
miral ?" she asked the Consul. 

"Say," said the Consul, "These are from the only 
American girl in Trieste to the only Admiral in the 
navy." 

Miss Martini set her lips for the sentence. As 
she was being ushered toward the Admiral she re- 
peated the words in her mind. And then she was 



124 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

in the presence of the Admiral, who held out his 
hand on her and robbed her of her thunder as he 
said quickly: 

"Ah, I hear you are the only American girl in 
Trieste, and I am happy to know you." 

"The only Am — to the only Admiral — these 
flowers," she said. 

"Oh, they are for me. They are lovely. I'll have 
them put in a vase and set on my table at once." 

In a minute he had put her at her ease. 

''You have come to see the ship, haven't you?" 
he went on. "These ships are all alike — guns and 
armor." , 

"Yes, the glorious Olympia, Admiral." 

"These officers, especially the young officers 
(with a wink to one of the Consuls), they are all 
alike. Straight up and down young men, all the 
same pattern like the guns. Our inspectors look 
after them just the same as they look after the guns 
to make sure that there are no flaws in them." 

The next day the daughter brought her mother 
on board. Before the Admiral went away he 
climbed the stairs to their flat and paid them a call. 
Mrs. Martini became famous for a day. One re- 
porter was scooped because he got only an "inter- 



TRIESTE. 125 

view" with her, while another got a "signed state- 
ment." Ye gods ! 

On Saturday evening the Consul received a neat 
little note fom a lady who enclosed the card of the 
Princess Mary de Ligouri, nee Williams, along 
with her autograph album, asking if the Consul 
would act as her intermediary in securing the sig- 
nature of the Admiral. He took the book out to the 
Admiral, \Vho said: "Certainly," and then turning 
over the leaves saw that the book was half a century 
old, and became interested. 

"Here are Turkish signatures, Pashas and Beys, 
no doubt," he said. "And here are the signatures 
of some of the officers of the United States man-of- 
war Wabash. The Wabash gave me my first sight 
df the Mediterranean. I was an ensign then. Can 
it be possible that this lady is one of the beautiful 
daughters of the then United States Minister to 
Turkey? She must be. I remember her perfectly. 

A very beautiful girl. If she, is my barge is at 
her service if she will come on board this afternoon." 

She was. But she was no longer a beautiful 
young woman, any more than the Admiral was 
a young ensign; but a lady with silver hair, di- 
vorced from her country, but not forgetful of it, 



126 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

living on the moderate income which is her hus- 
band's as an inspector of the Austrian Lloyd's. 
The successes of our arms were the more delight- 
ful to her on account of the Spanish sympathies 
of the Austrians. In her own words, she had 
crowed like a child when she heard of the victory 
of Manila Bay. 

"But I do not remember you, I must confess," 
she said, "although you remember me." 

"That is very natural," said the Admiral. 
"There were a great many officers — I was just 
telling a young lady the other day that these 
young officers are all alike — and there were not 
many beautiful American girls in Turkey." 

They chatted together for over an hour. 

Beyond the fact that he is to have a reception, 
the Admiral has known nothing of what is in 
store for him in New York. Only the newspapers 
had informed him that it was not to be a small 
reception. He has been worried a little since he 
has received so many telegrams from the mayors, 
lest his countrymen should expect more of him than 
his strength could stand. 

"No, they will study to make it easy for you," 
I told him, in Hong Kong. "There will be a 
path for you on Broadway. I imagine you will 



TRIESTE. 127 

have to ride the length of the path in a ravine 
of human beings and bunting while a thunder- 
storm of applause announces your advance," 

"That would not be so difficult," he said with 
a smile. 

Here he received the formal letter from Mayor 
Van Wyck offering him the hospitality of the city, 
and also a letter from General Butterfield, who is 
stage manager of the ovation, as it were. He replied 
to the letters at once. When I saw him in his 
cabin only a few minutes afterward he was in a 
very happy frame of mind. He sent for both the 
letters and the replies in order that I might see 
them. 

"Isn't that a good letter, that of the Mayor?" 
he exclaimed. "I don't see how he could have 
put it more felicitously. I shall enjoy meeting 
him. General Butterfield wants to send a repre- 
sentative to confer with me, so that the plans can 
be arranged according to my wishes. That is 
quite unnecessary. I have told him that whatever 
arrangements he may make will be perfectly satis- 
factory to me. I will do everything I can to be 
agreeable to his plans. We shall anchor in the 
Lower Bay on the night of September 30. Then 
I shall be in the committee's hands. After that 



128 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

I shall go to Washington for a reception which 
the President has been kind enough to offer to me." 

He bade me sit down at his desk rather than 
trv to copy the letters on my knee. The next 
minute Ah Mah had put something for me to 
drink at my elbow. I like the Admiral's desk 
very much. But I found myself embarrassed when 
some Italian officials and their wives came in and 
started to beat a retreat, as became one who was 
there on my mission. He would not permit of it, 
however. I had to be introduced and have a glass 
of champagne. 

The next time I saw him, he exclaimed: 

"You took my pencil yesterday." 

I thanked my stars that I had it in my pocket. 
I felt worse than a thief at the bar; for I know 
just how the Admiral, who wants everything in 
its place, had felt when he put his fingers out to 
his penholder case, which is made of Mauser shells, 
and found no pencil there. 

On the day of his arrival here I had had a simi- 
lar experience in running counter to Austrian of- 
ficials. The Admiral was speaking of the voyage 
from Colombo. 

"I was very comfortable," he said. "I have 
many good books, you see" — indicating the long 



TRIESTE. 129 

shelves around the ceiling of his cabin — "and I 
have only to put my hand up when I have finished 
one book and get another. If I ever run out of 
new books, there are enough old ones worth read- 
ing through a second time." 

He had begun as if he were going to speak, as 
he had at Hong Kong, of the ideas which his 
reading had brought to him, when I had my hopes 
dashed by the entrance of the orderly announcing 
the arrival of the everlasting Austrian officers to 
pay an official call. I made haste to retire. 

"Yes, this is official, you know," the Admiral 
said. "But don't go. You will find a comfortable 
chair out on the after-deck. As soon as the calls 
are over I will see you again." 

But when you have known him long you be- 
come as fearful as his officers lest you should pre- 
sume upon the good nature of one whose affability 
and kindness never diminish no matter how often 
they make him a victim. 

Of all the functions and incidents connected with 
the visit of Admiral Dewey to this place, the most 
impressive was the burial of Isaac Rask, able sea- 
man of the Olympia, who was serving his fourth en- 
listment. When he left Manila the doctor had no 
idea that Rask would ever reach home alive. His 



I30 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

pitiful plea that he should not be sent to the hospi- 
tal at Corregidor, that he might accompany his com- 
rades home, was readily granted. Men of his class 
have a warm place in the heart of the Admiral and 
of all officers of the navy, who treat them with pa- 
ternal care. Whenever they have finished an enlist- 
ment they say that they have had enough of the 
navy. They are certain that they can earn better 
wages and enjoy life more ashore. In a month, or 
perhaps less, they turn up at a recruiting station, 
tired of cheap lodging-houses, tired of soiled clothes. 

In the early stages of the voyage, Rask had all the 
hopefulness of the consumptive. He spoke with the 
others of the good times he was going to have in 
New York. When he began to realize the truth, 
his comrades made light of his fears, and told him 
that he would feel better once he was in the Med- 
iterranean. At Trieste he was so low that the doc- 
tor sent him ashore to the hospital so his last mo- 
ments would be more comfortable. 

Upon his death the Olympia's flag was lowered 
to half-mast, and with it those of the Austrian ships 
in port out of sympathy. All first class and special 
class men who wished were allowed to attend the 
funeral. All went. Besides, there was an escort 
of marines and the flagship's band. Rask's remains 



TRIESTE. 131 

were laid in the little chapel of the hospital and 
wrapped in the flag, with a wreath from his fellows 
and a wreath from the Admiral resting upon it. Be- 
fore the escort arrived a number of people, as is the 
custom of the country, came in to gratify their cur- 
iosity and utter short prayers. While the appointed 
ones of the dead man's comrades lifted the coffii 
into the hearse and the wreaths after it, and other 
Jackies stood just behind the hearse, our marines 
and their escort of Austrian marines stood in a 
flanking line the length of the roadway, and the 
band played the "Dead March." 

The Austrians are fond of a funeral, particularly 
of this kind. More of them turned out to see a sail- 
or buried than to see a live admiral. The poor 
people who do not come down town lined the streets 
of the long march to the German Lutheran Cem- 
etery on the hill. The simplicity of the little pro- 
cession surprised them. There was nothing osten- 
tatious except the tawdry old hearse. Everything 
went like clockwork, even as aboard ship. There 
was no hitch, no stumbling; every Jacky knew his 
place. At the grave the German Lutheran clergy- 
man in broken English read the service. Bugler 
Mitchell, standing on the fresh earth, blew the last 
sad note in honor of his comrade. Lieutenant Nel- 



I32 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

son thrice gave the order to load blank cartridges 
and to fire; and the stern, sombre, and beautiful 
proceeding was over. 

The crowd was still waiting outside the gates 
when the party filed out as quietly as it had come. 

"Well, Ike didn't get home as he wanted to, but 
he died in a civilized country, anyway," I overheard 
a Jacky say. 

"Kind o' — kind o' civilized," was the reply of his 
neighbor, as he looked around at the flat, dumb 
faces of the Slav and Dalmatian poor, which were 
in such sharp contrast to the keen faces of the 
Jackies. 

Trieste, July 28. 



CHAPTER VII. 

NAPLES. 

The Bay of Naples has the reputation of being 
the most beautiful bay in the world. It had an 
early start over other bays in this respect, 
winning its reputation before there was a Suez 
Canal and the ordinary mortal could afford to go 
around the world and see some of its rivals. In 
its best moods it is worthy of its great name; bur 
it is not at its best in the early morning when 
Vesuvius is obscured by the mist which hangs 
over the water. So thick was the mist when the 
Olympia came in just after daylight that she was 
not visible at a distance of a mile. At this hoar 
the Consuls and all the Italian officials were 
asleep. The Admiral was up, however, and early 
on deck. 

The voyage from Trieste had been simply "fair," 
Captain Lamberton said. There was not a ripple 
on the blue sheen of the Adriatic and the Mediter- 
ranean. In passing through the Straits of Mes- 
sina, the Jackies, who had heard of Scylla and 



134 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Charybdis, looked the current over with practiced 
eyes and concluded that they would like to have 
a try at it in the captain's gig. "Bob," the Ad- 
miral's "chow" dog, saw enough of land to keep 
him from the melancholy which destroyed his; 
appetite in crossing the Indian Ocean. "Sagasta," 
the pig, who had recovered from the bruises re- 
ceived in the tossing from the monsoon, did not 
bump his nose once. The whole family of the 
Olympia was in the best spirits I had ever known 
it to be. Apparently, livers were working well again. 
All hands denied the possession of any such organ. 

There was not a case of fever or of sickness on 
board. He was the exception who had not gained 
from two to three pounds since the Olympia ar- 
rived at Trieste. At this rate (say an average of 
three pounds a man a week) with seven weeks 
between now and October ist, there will have to 
be some radical alterations in uniforms before the 
receptions and dinners in New York. You, at 
home, will not see the real heroes of Manila at all. 
They were slim men. 

All of which is great joy to the Admiral. In 
fact, it is the "snapper," as Captain Lamberton 
says, to his little joke. No less than other men, he 
likes to have his prophecies come true. This 



NAPLES. 135 

Mediterranean trip was his own idea, though he 
did not tell his officers the secret of it at the time 
of its conception. They do their duty, and he 
thinks of their comfort and well being. He knew 
the Mediterranean of old; first as ensign on the 
Wabash and again as a commander ; he understood 
the effect that its balmy air would have on his 
officers and men. The rough passage from Col- 
ombo followed by the heat of the Red Sea devel- 
oped a hundred cases of fever- If the Olympia 
had headed straight for New York from Suez; 
if the crew had had no rest ; if everybody had been 
on duty all the time without the luxury of a few 
days ashore, it is more than probable that pale and 
fever-stricken beings would have been the objects 
of your greeting. The receptions and the dinner 
would have finished the work and put them to bed, 
while the navy would have had a tropical sick list- 
as well as the army. 

"Yes, that was what the Admiral had in his 
head all the time," said an ensign. "We didn't 
exactly understand. It seemed to us a long way 
round to get home. But we knew it would come 
out all right. It always does with the Admiral. 
That is just the reason that we would feel per- 



I36 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

fectly confident in going against anything with 
him in command." 

The Admiral's cheeks are actually rosy. He is 
not living on a rice diet now as he was from Hong 
Kong to Singapore. As a trencherman at the little 
official dinners which must take place whenever 
he stops at any port, he does very well. I can 
state on the highest authority, as those wonderful 
beings, the Continental journalists, would say, that 
he has gained enough flesh and that he would be 
quite content to have the scales balance just where 
they do for years to come. 

When he said at Manila that his health was not 

equal to the strain of the receptions in crossing the 

continent, it absolutely was not. When he said that 
his health would not permit him to accept invita- 
tions in Hong Kong, it would not. But he little 
realized at the time what he was bringing on him- 
self. The papers at home got the impression that 
he was a very sick man. The people received their 
impressions from the papers, and once they have 
an impression it is hard to change their minds. It 
is just as reasonable that the Admiral should be 
quite well, even strong for his age, now when he 
was not strong in Hong Kong two months ago, 
as it is that a man who had an attack of indiges- 



NAPLES. 137 

tion two months ago should be at work in his 
office to-day. The tropics tear down and never 
build up. How quickly the air this side of the 
Suez will reclaim tissue broken down by the air on 
the other side of the Suez has become a proverb 
in the British colonial service. The man who has 
suffered from the blight of the tropics, once he is 
past the canal feels as if he were in the first stages 
of rapid recovery from typhoid fever. Cable after 
cable must have been sent from Trieste on the 
state of the Admiral's health. Those American 
tourists who come here now must have read these 
cables. Nevertheless, they expect to find the Ad- 
miral a pale, emaciated being, with bent shoulders 
and dyspeptic air, instead of a dapper, hale, erect 
man looking to be fifty years instead of sixty-one. 
To the old question his usual reply at this time 
is quite to the point. "Look at me !" he says, with 
his shoulders thrown back and the flush of health 
on his countenance. I think it is the only question, 
outside of questions relating to his private affairs, 
which bores him a little. 

He is never impolite. Every American he meets 
says: "Oh, but you can't imagine what a recep- 
tion they are going to give you in New York!" 
Or if an official and a little familiar : "You will be in 



I38 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

for it when you get home!" To which the Admiral 
always makes a pleasant reply which might lead 
the speaker to think that he had given the man 
who has received more than a hundred cablegrams 
of invitations in forty-eighjt hours at Manila a 
great piece of information. The Admiral's readi- 
ness with little phrases is amazing, but not as 
amazing as his manner of speaking them. He is 
likely to say: "So I have heard-" In cold print 
that might be taken for sarcasm. In the mouths 
of a Mansfield, a Goodwin and a Coquelin com- 
bined it could be given a score of different mean- 
ings. As the Admiral says it, with his eyes twink- 
ling, it is at the opposite pole from sarcasm. It 
makes the speaker feel quite at home ; and the 
next moment the Admiral has changed the subject 
from himself to the flagship or his dog "Bob." 

The flagship, the officers, the guns, and "Bob" 
are his life preservers. If somebody showers com- 
pliments on him, he steps so deftly to one side that 
you scarcely realize the change, and there is 
Captain Lamberton or Flag-Lieutenant Brumby 
or Private Secretary Caldwell, or whatever officer 
is present, made by a word from the Admiral the 
recipient of the whole downpour. What the officer 
wants to say is : "Please, Admiral, let me find a 



NAPLES. 139 

nook where I can hide." Instead, he does the best 
he can, which is fine practice in self-possession. 

The officers of the wardroom, where fever 
claimed every man a victim after leaving Colombo, 
are now the keenest of all in denying that lie that 
there were ever livers on board of the Olympia. 
Of course, livers may have been talked about at - 
Manila, but Manila is history. The first require- 
ment in the wardroom is that you shall not be 
a historian of Manila. They may talk about a pecul- 
iar resemblance between a burning nipa hut and 
Lieutenant Nelson's Manila cigars — the Lieuten- 
ant returns torture for torture by assuring them 
that he has more than enough to last him to New 
York — but they never talk of the part they played 
in the battle. That is a peculiarity of most officers 
of the regular army and of the navy. I never heard 
Colonel Stotsenberg or Colonel Egbert (who died 
as nobly as man can die) or General Funston, 
Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace, Captain Wheeler, or 
any one of a number of equally courageous officers 
in the Philippines tell how brave they are any 
more than I have heard the same thing from Cap- 
tain Lamberton, or any other officer of the Olym- 
pia. Such talk seems to be reserved for certain 
correspondents who fall into wells on their way to 



I40 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

the firing-line and for officers with political ap- 
pointments who get the information as to whether 
or not their outposts are driven in from their 
brigade commanders. The wardroom as well as 
the "steerage" holds that the honor of the victor- 
ies belongs to the Admiral. 

"He conceived, he organized his forces for, and 
he won, a great victory," said one officer. "To him 
belongs the credit." 

At present, the badinage directed at one lieu- 
tenant who had a sword of honor offered to him 
by his native town has been directed at another, 
the Board of Aldermen of whose town want to 
escort him from New York to his home. The 
officers of the wardroom are very grateful, for they 
appreciate the intentions and the feelings of their 
fellow townsmen; but what they cannot under- 
stand is why anybody wants to make so much fuss 
about a few fellows who did what they were 
trained to do when they were told to do it. They 
cannot make speeches; they already begin to feel 
embarrassed at the prospect. Their inclination is 
to hide, as I have said. Some of them have wives, 
others have sweethearts, whom they have not seen 
for one or two years — and what is the hospitality 
of New York beside a sweetheart? Most of them, 




NAT PHILLIPS, GUNNER 
(who has had 15 years' service^ 



• 


1 



PURDY, THE "FATHER OF THE FORECASTLE" ON THE "OLYMPIA 



NAPLES. 141 

I think, would prefer to slip quietly in at the 
back door at home without any band to escort 
them and have a glass of milk and a piece of apple 
pie with the family; for they are Americans and 
not Orientals. They will do their duty, however. 
Down in the steerage among the juniors, they are 
proud because they think that their lot, owing to 
their position, will be easy. They are calculating, 
with clear consciences, that they can leave New 
York within a day or two after their arrival. This 
is fit. Sweethearts are sometimes more impatient 
than wives. 

Having planned to make them well in the Med- 
iterranean, the Admiral took the delight of a 
father on a holiday with his family in giving them 
leave and in even suggesting through Captain Lam- 
berton, as an old hand in the Mediterranean, in 
what way they could gain the most pleasure and 
profit. Only officers enough to maintain the dis- 
cipline of the ship were to remain aboard at any 
time, a just table of leave being arranged. 

"Father Rainey," (the Chaplain) said the Ad 
miral to the Captain, "will want to go to Rome, 
though he may be a little diffident about asking 
you. He must go. Sunday is a great day for his 



142 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

church in Rome, and it is a fine opportunity tor 
him." 

Later in the week the Captain and Mr. Brumby 
also went to Rome together. It was suggested 
that the loosing of two such bold characters in 
civilian garb on the world might require an escort 
of Italian infantry. The Captain said, however, 
that they would try to get on without it. 

Naples, August 8th. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

NAPLES. 

"Another admiral's name is connected with this 
bay," it was suggested to the Admiral. 

"Yes," he said, almost sharply, "but not pleas- 
antly. He did wrong to hang that man. Of course 
influences were brought to bear upon him ; unpleas- 
ant influences. Still it remains the great blot upon 
his name. Therefore I do not like to think of him 
in connection with Naples." 

The Naples of to-day is different from the Naples 
of Nelson's day so far as the town is concerned. 
Even Southern Italy siestas permit that a town 
should be largely rebuilt in a hundred years. It 
cannot resist the march of invention and mechan- 
ical progress, although it studiously and success- 
fully keeps far enough behind to exasperate the 
foreigner. Only Vesuvius, with the smoke ever 
pouring out of her chimney, the blue bay and the 
blue sky remain the same- But what would Nel- 
son have thought of the Olympia with her turrets, 
armor and breechloading rifles; or of the Italian 



144 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

men-of-war tied up to the quay near the arsenal? 
What would he think if all the photographic ap- 
paratus which has been in operation on board the 
Olympia this week had been brought on board the 
Victory? If it had, the biographies of him might 
have been as fully illustrated as the Admiral's lives 
will be. A snapshot of the call to quarters on the 
Olympia may yet be the basis of future bas-reliefs 
of monuments of the Admiral. The one which 
shows him on the deck of the Olympia, when she 
had drawn off after the first round with the Span- 
iards, in a Scotch cap, well drawn down over his 
ears, would scarcely do for a heroic bronze. It : s 
a pity that we are so commonplace. Nelson in 
his full uniform with his decorations on his breast 
as a snapshot subject would have been something 
like the popular idea of the hero who goes into 
battle with one hand in his waistcoat and the 
other pointing toward the enemy. 

The Admiral happened to make the remark 
about Nelson while he was waiting for a photo- 
grapher to arrange his apparatus. In short, the 
Admiral has opened the flagship to photo- 
graphers this week. For months he had been post- 
poning the ordeal of having his own photograph 
taken. Photographers, who boasted that they had 



NAPLES. I45 

never failed to get a great man, came all the way 
from New York to persuade him to pose and they 
surrendered before his "No" as quickly as a Fili- 
pino caught in a trench. 

"When I am away from Manila I will think of 
it," he said. 

That only one photograph of him except as a 
youth was in existence at the time of his victory is 
evidence enough of an enmity against the camera, 
in which he is not wholly alone. How miserable 
the photograph is all who have seen him will 
realize. It is in no wise worthy of his strong and 
handsome face. I doubt if any photograph ever 
will be. But a photograph which was a little more 
like the real George Dewey than the one with 
which we at home are most familiar was quite 
possible. Now that he was off duty and had 
regained his health, to say nothing of an increase 
of ten pounds in weight, he concluded that 
he might as well have the ordeal over in the Bay 
of Naples as anywhere else. An engagement was 
made with the Chevalier Mauri, who holds a license 
as photographer to the King of Italy, for 
nine o'clock Wednesday morning- The Chevalier, 
an old man, who is very proud of his "art," was 
on board before nine with all his apparatus. He went 



I46 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

all around the afterdeck feeling of the atmosphere, 
I judged by his gestures, to find out which was 
the best position for his camera. When he found 
it he proceeded to put up hangings and arrange 
screens, feeling both of the atmosphere and of 
them as he moved them a little this way or that 
He was quite ready at a quarter to nine. 
Meantime, the Admiral had been an onlooker 
for fifteen minutes. He had come out of the cabin 
at half-past eight, his breakfast over, saying: "I 
am ready, gentlemen." The morning was excep- 
tionally fine ; the view of the water, the hills and 
Vesuvius exceptionally clear. He spoke of this 
while he waited and then Nelson was mentioned 
with the reply which I have already quoted. "I 
am in your hands," he said to the photographer. 
"I will obey orders." 

He was as good as his word while the ordeal 
lasted. Then he sought relief in a book in his 
cabin. The prints when they werie shown to him in 
part repaid him for his trouble. They were the 
best he had ever had taken, he said. Upon hear- 
ing this, the Chevalier Mauri danced with delight 
and said, on his part, that previously the great man 
had not had the privilege of posing for an artist. 

Having opened the gates, the flood came. All 



NAPLES. 147 

you had to do was to go on board, set up a cam- 
era, and the ship was yours. The engines and 
even the Admiral's bed were photographed, I am 
told. One photographer had four hundred plates 
and was still unsatisfied. The officers were tired, 
but patient. The Jackies were taken doing about 
everything that a Jacky does on board ship, routine 
or otherwise. They had arguments among them- 
selves, accompanied by a good deal of horse play, 
as to whether a hero ought to look serious or 
smile when he had his picture taken. 

"You want to smile," said the man at the sew- 
ing machine. "Because why? Because the people 
expect to see you pleased to be a noble hero and 
not growling about it." 

"No, you don't," said the man next to him who 
was sewing on buttons. "You want to look serious, 
as if the shot was raging all about you and you 
were thinking about home and mother." 

"Best compromise, I guess," was the reply. "It's 
dead sure that if we don't, our faces will get so stiff 
we will have to have 'em ironed out to get back 
our natura 1 expression, so our mothers '11 know us." 

The photographers easily could have found all 
the officers on board at Manila, but there they 
were in no more mood, as a rule, to be photo- 



I48 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

graphed right and left than was the Admiral. Here 
if a photographer wants to "get" the wardroom or 
the steerage he finds half the officers gone. They 
are more interested in dinners than in photographs, 
more interested in seeing Pompeii than in having 
their pictures appear in the newspapers. They can 
have their photographs taken any day, but they 
can't go to Pompeii for a quarter any day. 

Let there be no dissimulation ! Dinners 
are the first consideration. The one thought 
of the man who has been at sea is a din- 
ner ashore. The relief from the dinners in the 
mess, which must be more or less alike, owing to 
the Chinese cook's lack of originality, is only a 
small part of the question. There is an increase 
of apeptite with the very change from sea to shore. 
In the wardroom the first officers to have leave 
compare notes on the various restaurants they have 
visited. By the fourth or fifth day they have 
decided which is the best restaurant in the town 
and all patronize it. The Consul may tell them 
which is, at the start, but they are not always con- 
vinced. They like to have the restaurants officially 
investigated. Consuls fall into the ways of the 
country. They cease to appreciate that a good 



NAPLES. 149 

steak, potatoes and salad are the first requirements 
of a good dinner. 

In the junior mess ("steerage," the wardroom 
calls it) they want dinners ashore, but they think 
less of them than of seeing whatever is going on. 
They, in the wardroom ("morgue," the junior mess 
calls it) have stomachs. So have the juniors, but 
they are not aware of it. The time of promotion 
from the junior mess to the wardroom is about 
the time when a man's habits become set and he 
realizes that he has a stomach. Unhappy fellow ! 
He becomes a superior being, with an interior 
realization of it. 

The restaurants in Naples being Neapolitan are 
not the best in the world according to our taste, 
whatever they may be according to Neapolitan taste. 
In any Neapolitan restaurant you will be 
told that a steak will be "done" for you in ten 
minutes. They bring it to you in twenty or thirty 
or forty, with the conscious importance of having 
been thorough. If you like your steak rare you 
simply have not the strength to speak. If you 
like it medium, you muster a few words of com- 
plaint. Then the waiter says that he understands 
your French or Ita^an and rushes off to have 
the steak put on the grill for ten minutes more. 



I50 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

An Italian steak is not large to begin with. 
It does not increase in size with continual frying. 
By the time it is ready for you, there is only a 
mouthful. After you have eaten it you must 
bear up patiently until the waiter has 
charged you for it. The officers get off 
without being charged twice too much. It 
is the Jackies, as a rule, whom the waiter 
considers a fair and sure prey. When 

I see an Italian waiter cheating one of our Jackies 
my natural instinct is to get that waiter by the col- 
lar and throw him into the street. But I don't, 
for I boast of belonging to a civilization superior 
to that of Southern Italy. 

It may be a new or it may be an old saying. I 
am convinced, however, that Southern Italy, hav- 
ing Pompeii and Vesuvius, wants nothing more 
except full hotels, tips for their employees, and em- 
ployment for her cabmen at her own price; her 
own price varying according to the nature and 
wealth of the customer. 

Cabmen, guides and restaurants in somewise 
overcome, both officers and men enjoyed them- 
selves in this choice part of the earth's surface 
over which hovers the romance of history. A few- 
were able to take in Pompeii, Vesuvius and Rome, 



NAPLES. 151 

too. Most contented themselves with one half or 
the other of the programme. A number of Jackies 
went to Rome. Fortified with return tickets they 
entertained no fears. On the Corso they met some 
British Jackies. 

"Do you speak English?" the British Jackies 
asked. 

"We did. We ain't sure now. But we guess 
we're Italians," the American Jackies replied, and 
they joined the British Jackies- 

The Admiral himself did not go to any of the 
places of historical interest. He had seen them 
before when a young man. When the Olympia sailed 
this morning he had a record of one more dinner 
and one more reception than he had in Trieste; of 
more callers and of fewer drives ashore. 

Naples, August 12. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LEGHORN. 

About half of Naples and less than half of Leg- 
horn knew who Admiral Dewey was. Many admir- 
als come to both places and the populace thought 
that he was only another. Leghorn will be en- 
lightened in the course of time, just as was Naples, 
by the local papers whose reporters will go on 
board the Olympia and ask what it was that the 
Admiral did that the Americans should make so 
much fuss over him. "Oh, just sailing around 
the world," the officer of the deck may say, very 
seriously. It is a long time to wait for news of 
May ist, 1898, but the Italian papers get few and 
brief foreign telegrams. As so many of the lower 
classes cannot read, it would not matter much to 
them if they had many and long ones. The intel- 
ligent classes knew of him as one who had taken 
part in the war with Spain, which they think was 
a war of little account because Spain did not win. 
They also know of another American admiral, the 
one who sunk Cervera's squadron. They don't re- 



LEGHORN. I53 

member that admiral's name, although they are 
certain that they heard it at the time. 

The single line in the local paper which an- 
nounced the Admiral's arrival yesterday morning 
led the half dozen people who had American flags 
to run them up. They were either Americans or 
English, or were connected with America in a busi- 
ness way. By them and them alone one might 
have known of the event. 

I asked the porter of the hotel — the hotel calls 
itself Anglo-American — if the Admiral had ar- 
rived yet and he asked a waiter if he knew any- 
thing about an Admiral Dewey. 

"Yes," said the waiter. "He's the one the Amer- 
icans are asking for. He's come all the way from 
some place called Colombo, in China." 

There was a time — the manners of the men in the 
streets and the age of its buildings mark its passage 
— when Leghorn (or Livorno, as the Italians call 
it) was the great port for the export of the pro- 
ducts of Northern Italy, and the import of the pro- 
ducts which Northern Italy received in return from 
the countries over the sea. Its day may come again. 
Surely its day is not now. Genoa, with a better 
harbor, has gradually taken away its prosperity. 
All that is modern is the inevitable statue of Victor 



154 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Immanuel in the public square. Still retaining 
some of its trade, it pieces out the substance neces- 
sary to existence from the not too well filled purses 
of the great numbers of Italians who come here for 
the air and for bathing in summer. There is one 
resident American here, the Consul. A few English 
exporters and importers keep him company. 

The two ensigns who had fallen into the hands 
of the first boatman to go out and who passed me 
with their bicycles on their way for their run 
ashore, did not have to wait on official calls. That 
is the beauty of being a junior. Poor Flag-Lieu- 
tenant Brumby lost two days' leave at Naples be- 
cause the official calls strung out to such length. 

If there is anything wrong in the cabin there 
is something in the air on deck which makes you 
realize it. Besides this, I noticed that the Admi- 
ral's barge was still lashed in its place and appar- 
ently was not to be taken down with the launch. 
"Bob" was not rushing up and down, looking 
wistfully at the shore. 

"Yes, the Admiral is not feeling well and he will 
not go ashore to-day," said the officer of the deck. 

Or, in the language of Captain Lamberton, 
"Nothing serious, and just off his ration a little." 

It is the Admiral's weakness to be too good- 



LEGHORN. 155 

natured and to think too little of himself and too 
much of the comfort of others. Perhaps those 
whose dinners he ate at Naples will feel guilty 
when they hear the news, although a little indis- 
position is as likely to happen to an admiral as to 
anybody else without any apparent reason. If a 
touch of illness makes the Olympia so gloomy, 
one wonders what would be the aspect of things 
if he were really ill. Then the doctor took matters 
into his own hands and bade the Admiral remain 
in bed until he was better. That left Captain Lam- 
berton and Lieutenant Brumby to call upon the 
Prefect of the Department, the Mayor of the City, 
and the General Commanding the Troops, and to re- 
turn the call of the Captain of the Port, which they 
did, in the company of the Consul. When the 
Admiral is up he will find a clean slate and he is 
promised the quietest week he has had at any port 
except at Hong Kong. It was not absolutely 
necessary that he should go to bed provided that he 
would keep still out of bed, which is the hardest 
thing in the world for the Admiral to do ; so the 
doctor would take no chances. 

He never said as much to a foreign admiral, 
any more than a foreign admiral who felt in the 
same way said as much to him. I have other 



I56 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

authority for the conviction that our Admiral 
finds official calls by proxy an excellent institu- 
tion. Official calls there must be, if we are to 
have international law, and if tourists when they 
visit foreign lands wish to avoid taking a conquer- 
ing army with them as a passport. It is by these 
tokens that nations express their friendly feeling 
at the same time that they let one another know 
of the existence of their forts and men-of-war. 
"You have a beautiful ship," says — he may be an 
honest, truthful man, and believe her an old tub — 
the gentleman in a cocked hat who goes on board 
the visiting vessel. 

"You have a beautiful harbor," says — he may be 
a truthful, honest man, too, just as surely as the 
harbor is a breakwater in front of a low-lying beach 
— the gentleman in fatigue uniform who has re- 
ceived the gentleman in the cocked hat and con- 
ducted him to his cabin. 

Then the gentleman in the cocked hat goes back 
to his own ship as his headquarters to change 
cocked hat for cap, waits for the other to put on 
his cocked hat and return the call, when they say 
the same things over again. 

You can see the hypocrisy of it, yet you can see 
the danger of it, if they should say, "So your old 



LEGHORN. I57 

tub didn't founder on the voyage, eh ?" and "What 
a mudhole of a harbor you have !" 

Gradually the thing is being simplified. The 
time may come when it may all be done by press- 
ing buttons on a patent saluting-and-exchange- 
official-courtesies-machine in the signal-tower at the 
entrance to a port. Slipping the blank shells into 
a five-inch breechloader is an improvement over 
the nine-inch muzzleloaders of the old days — they 
requiring a little fortune in powder, half a day's 
work to salute the port, and an admiral or two — 
which the youngsters of the navy fail to appre- 
ciate. An officer of the Olympia recalls a piping 
hot day in the Dardenelles, when a fez and a coat 
covered with gold lace came aboard to say that a 
Turkish admiral was entitled to nineteen, not 
seventeen, guns, and the Jackies had to do the 
salute over again. Flag-lieutenants, who have to 
keep track of the regulations, have been known to 
express a prejudice in favor of the Chinese method. 
Chinese forts give great and small, lieutenant? 
commanding torpedo-boats and admirals com- 
manding fleets, all the same salute, three guns, 
when they have the fuse and powder. When 
they have not, they send word to the visitor that it 
he would like a salute and will lend them the 



I58 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

materials, and perhaps the gunners, he may have 
it. 

Whatever his attitude toward them as a recrea- 
tion, the Admiral is certainly a good hand at offi- 
cial calls. An easy address is half the battle. He 
lends to them a charm which formalities seldom 
have. As he stands at the gangway with out- 
stretched hand of welcome, he is the picture of the 
urbane and delighted host. Though he may have 
to speak through an interpreter, the conversation 
never lags. He likes to have all who are coming 
to pay official calls appear in rapid succession so that 
he can be off in his barge to repay them before he 
has time to lose his enthusiasm. If he had his way, 
when he arrives in a port at daylight, he would have 
all the calls over by the rising hour of the average 
maritime prefect; at least, by ten o'clock. Next to 
official ceremonies, impatience is most wearing on 
him. If he himself were ever late for an appoint- 
ment, the event has not been recorded, as it would 
be almost to a certainty on account of its extra- 
ordinary nature. 

» Like most men of great talent, he has peculiar 
traits. There are some things which are as hard 
on him as making a speech — trying to make one — 
was on General Grant. An hour's wait for an of- 



LEGHORN. I59 

ficial visit takes more of his strength than five 
hours' extra work at routine duties. The "dolce 
far niente" manner of the officials at Naples in 
paying their calls, those banquets and the reception 
at Naples — these made it necessary, by making the 
Admiral ill, for Captain Lamberton to pay as well 
as to receive the official calls here. 

He was not well enough to be out of bed for 
an hour after the Prefect, the General and the Ad- 
miral had left the flagship. Then the card of Sig- 
nor Mazi, Vice-Consul of the United States at 
Leghorn, was brought to him. The Admiral 
recognized the name at once. Any naval officer on 
the active list who has ever been on the European 
station, would. Signor Mazi has been our Vice- 
Consul at Leghorn for thirty years, teaching con- 
sul after consul his duties and how to speak Italian, 
and then, having finished the task, has seen 
the graduate go away and the new pupil come. 
He has been kind to them in their hours of dark- 
ness without being proud ; and he has never made 
their ignorance his own profit as some vice-con- 
suls do. Throughout Leghorn he is familiarly 
known by his bonhomie, his explosive voice, and 
his By Jingoes, not to say his By Thunders. 

"By Jingo, sir, he saw me; saw me, sir, by Jin- 



l6o GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

go," he said. "He's the same Dewey. By thunder, 
there's no side about him. When you see some 
of the fellows in gold braid strutting around, fellows 
by Jingo that never smelt powder — yes, by Jingo, 
sir, and think they're Lord Almighties! And by 
Jingo, when this man that wiped out a Spanish 
fleet like knocking the ashes off a cigar ! — changed 
the destiny of a nation ! — asks me to come right in 
before he gets his coat on — by Jingo, sir, it makes 
me thundering proud to be Vice-Consul of the 
United States, sir." 

" 'You haven't grown old a day', he said. 

" 'And you haven't,' I said. 'By Jingo, we're 
both young men yet.' 

" 'It's a long time since we first met, Mr. Mazi,' 
he said. 'I was an ensign on the Wabash then. 
You've seen me an ensign, a lieutenant, and a 
captain, and now you see me an admiral.' 

"'Yes, by Jingo,' I said; 'and I see what you 
ought to be, by the Mighty Thunders.' 

"He's one of my boys. I don't forget these fine 
fellows that come here on our Uncle Sam's ships, 
by Jing' - I remember George Dewey, ensign, 
lieutenant, captain. Straight up and down, ship- 
shape, orderly gentleman, by Jingo. A little of a 
lord, a little of a martinet in that way he had of 



LEGHORN. l6l 

carrying himself. Never a lord in what he said 
and did. By Jingo, I knew there was something 
in him. 

"When I heard of that battle of Manila, I nearly 
jumped over the deck, and said: 'That's my cap- 
tain of the Pensacola, by the Mighty Thunders. 
He made the Tackies toe the mark, and now he's 
put the Spaniards under the yoke. My George 
Dewey! The hour I spent with him was worth 
a year of my life, by Jingo ! Ah, we who were 
youngsters in the fifties when we meet again have 
the advantage of you youngsters of to-day. The 
grand man ! I wanted to put my arms around him 
and fold him to my heart, by the Mighty Thunders!" 

If an untrained consular service always pro- 
duced such lovable, faithful and capable vice-con- 
suls as Mr. Mazi, I should be in favor of it. 

It is remarkable that Leghorn, this out-of-the- 
way place, should also have a superior man for 
consul. Mr. Smith is from Vermont. He actually 
speaks the language of the country to which he 
is accredited. With one from his own State, the 
Admiral felt perfectly at home. 

"If you would really care for it, I should like tD 
give you a luncheon or hold a reception for you ai 
my house," said the Consul. 



1 62 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

"Now, don't, please don't," was the reply of 
one speaking to home folks. 

"I understand," said the Consul. 

"Have you read David Harum?" the Admiral 
asked. "Isn't it very true of some of the people 
we know up in Vermont?" 

Then he and the Consul called to mind all the 
people in Vermont whom they both knew, and en- 
joyed themselves immensely. 

Leghorn, August 13. 



CHAPTER X. 

LEGHORN. 

At last the Admiral knows what is in 
store for him in New York. Within an 
hour after he received General Butterfield's 
letter containing the complete programme, a repiy 
was in the orderly's mail bag. From the first, the 
Admiral had been afraid of banquets, and here 
was the news that there were to be none. The Gen- 
eral's letter could not have come at a more oppor- 
tune moment. A good night's sleep had made the 
Admiral completely himself again. 

Thus, recovered from the effects of little din- 
ners in Naples, he no longer might fear that if Ma- 
nila Bay was his Austerlitz a big New York re- 
ception might be his Waterloo. 

When I went over to the flagship this morn- 
ing at nine, the recipient-to-be of the greatest ova- 
tion the American people have ever given to any 
man was walking up and down the after-deck with 
his dog "Bob" at his heels. I had come to sec 
him at the hour between his breakfast and the des- 



164 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

patch of business or the reception of visitors, when 
he is least occupied and most likely to enjoy a chat. 
As I went aft to a seat to wait until Mr. Brumby 
should know that I had the eternal request to see 
the Admiral to make again, the Admiral happened 
to look in my direction. 

"Good morning," he called out, and beckoned to 
me in a manner which suggested that the customary 
formality was superfluous. 

There was an unusual amount of color in his face. 
He had been walking with his hands behind him. 
with his head thrown up a little as if he considered 
that the world on the whole was a good one 
on account of some new and pleasing trait which 
had just been practically illustrated to him. He 
was handsome and happy enough to fit the pari 
of the most beloved of seventy millions of people. 
I had brought to him a reversible plate of the pho- 
tograph, which he had chosen as his favorite 
among eight poses. Old Chevalier Mauri, who took 
these photographs at Naples, had taken special care 
with the plate, which he had asked me to give to 
the Admiral. 

"That is fine, clever. It's the same if you look 
at it on either side, only on one side my ring is on 




THE ADMIRAL S FAVORITI I'KTl'RI 



LEGHORN. 165 

my left hand. It is really the best photograph I 
have ever had taken." 

It was the morning for the call to gen- 
eral quarters. The marines were lined up 
on one side of the deck and the Jackies on the 
other. Every officer was on duty and had 
his sword on. In another minute or two 
the lines would suddenly break up and every man 
would rush for some part of the ship with the im- 
petuosity of boys out of school. It would seem 
for the moment as if order had been turned into 
chaos, and the ship's company had become three 
hundred different men with three hundred differ- 
ent minds. A moment later, behold ! every 
man, the subject of one mind and one idea, was at 
the place assigned to him, ready for his part in 
helping to throw every ounce of metal that the ship 
was capable of against an enemy. 

Lieutenant Hourigan, one of the handsomest of- 
ficers in the navy, was walking up and down in- 
specting the line of Jackies, when it crossed the 
mind of the master of everything from bow to 
stern that he wanted somebody to share with him 
the pleasure of looking at a reversible plate. 

"Mr. Hourigan," he said, turning toward the 



1 66 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Lieutenant, who did not hear distinctly and 
thought that the Admiral was addressing someone 
else. 

"Mr. Hourigan," he repeated. 

"Yes, sir — I didn't understand, sir." 

Mr. Hourigan saluted and came forward, and 
Mr . Hourigan's face was crimson- He didn t 
know what was coming. 

The Admiral's eyes twinkled. I have already 
said that he was happy this morning. 

"Isn't that very clever, Mr. Hourigan?" he 
asked, holding up the plate. "It is both a positive 
and a negative. You can tell the negative because 
my ring is on my left hand." 

"Yes, sir," was the reply. "That is an extremely 
good photograph of you, sir." 

The Lieutenant was smiling now. So was the 
whole ship's company as he saluted and returned 
to his duties. Nevertheless, every marine was 
looking straight ahead and no part of the routine 
had been delayed a second — only Mr. Hourigan 
had paced up and down the line one time less. 

"Orderly," said the Admiral, "tell Ah Ling to 
come here," and there was a soft step and a "Yessee" 
at his elbow. 

"Ah Ling, I am going to take this to Montpelier 



LEGHORN. 167 

with me. (The Admiral, who has a fondness 
for doing things for himself, was replac- 
ing the plate in the box while Ah Ling eyed it 
waiting for his chance.) You put a lot of paper 
in with it, and pack it very tightly so there will 
be no danger of its breaking." 

"Yessee," and no doubt that plate will be so 
fortified that it would not break if the box were to 
fall off Trinity Church steeple onto Broadway. 

"We had better go up on the bridge," said the 
Admiral. "We shall soon be in the way here, with 
the exception of 'Bob,' who has no exactly defined 
duties but a general supervision over everything. 
A rush to quarters is great fun for him. I think 
he would like one ten times a day." 

The Admiral went up the steps to the after- 
bridge with as light a foot as a man of twenty 
years. From there the rush to quarters assumes a 
scenic importance which it does not possess when 
you are below on deck and trying to find a nook 
where you will not prevent some Jacky from 
fully doing his duty. The length and breadth of 
the vessel lie at your feet. 

"Aren't they a fine body of men?" he exclaimed, 
with a gesture toward the Jackies. "When the 
Archbishop of Manila came on board after wo 



1 68 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

took the city, he said, "You must be very proud to 
command such a body of men as this, Admiral !' 

" 'Yes, I said, 'I am. They belong to the Amer- 
ican navy, which has the finest body of men in the 
world/ " 

That was rubbing it in a little and I believe the 
Admiral knew it was. He will never forget that 
this same archbishop, in a proclamation urging 
resistance before the taking of the city, called us 
the "scum of the earth." This same archbishop was 
in the cellar of his palace eating ices during the 
unnecessary conflict which the honor of the Span- 
ish army had demanded. 

Suddenly the chaos began. Above all the noise 
of hurrying feet could be heard the bugle and the 
executive officer's voice. The crew, seeming to 
pay no attention to either, was executing the com- 
mands of both before the call was given or the 
word spoken. 

"See 'Bob' !" the Admiral exclaimed. "He is 
crazy with excitement. I wonder what he would 
do in a fight. Poor old 'Bob,' we'd have you tied 
hard and fast in the hold where you would be out 
of the way and out of danger. 

Then the Admiral noticed some point which he 
did not like. "That is unnecessary. It is a waste 



LEGHORN. 169 

of energy and an impediment. If I were on u 
board of inspection I should go for that." 

Inspections even in our navy are sometimes 
nominal. They never were, as naval officers well 
know, when he was on the board. A year ago he 
was a rigid disciplinarian. Now the discipline of 
the Olympia is greatly relaxed. She is on a holi- 
day cruise. The Admiral overlooks errors which 
would have been brought sharply to book before 
the battle and when he was at Manila, and which will 
be if he ever takes command of a squadron again. 
With the breech mechanism of the guns clicking; 
with the marines on the forward bridge going 
through the motions of loading and firing, you 
might think you had a vivid idea of the Olympia 
as she appeared on the morning when she ap- 
proached the entrance to Manila Bay. For all in- 
tents and purposes there was only one gun on the 
vessel for the one who was firing it or helping to 
fire it, whether carbine or eight-inch. For the 
firemen she was a maw to consume coal ; for the 
Chinamen in the hold an ammunition hoist ; for the 
engineers only a ship which must be propelled. 

But the difference between the call to quarters 
and that before the battle was great and such as 
you would naturally expect, if you stop to think 



I70 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

for a moment. Then there were no bugle and 
no calls. The word was passed and every man 
went quietly to his place, where he waited with the 
straining nerves and the clear eye of the hound 
in leash. The work so far as training went was 
done. They were ready. 

"I have just received General Butterfield's let- 
ter," the Admiral said. "I want to accommodate 
the committee in every way I can and disappoint 
no one. He states how difficult it is to time any 
function upon the arrival of a vessel. The whole 
guard of the State will be there he says. They 
must have a little time to mobilize in New York 
after they get the word, so I shall make assur- 
ance doubly sure. I shall be in the Lower Bay on 
the afternoon of the 29th instead of the 30th. The 
Reception Committee may depend upon that. We 
are leaving here on Monday evening at six and we 
shall be at Villefranche at eight on Tuesday 
morning. After a week there we shall go to Gib- 
raltar and we shall leave Gibraltar on the 12th of 
September instead of the 15th, as I had originally 
intended." 

"And you are not going to England, as I read 
in an English paper that you were?" 

'No, no. I am not going to England. There is 



LEGHORN. 171 

not time. I have not asked for an audience with 
the Pope; I am not going inland. Who starts 
these rumors, I wonder? We shall go straight 
across the Atlantic until we reach the Gulf Stream. 
Then we shall cruise about in the open not far 
from New York Bay until the morning of the 
29th, when we shall enter it and keep our appoint- 
ment. Yes, we are taking more than abundant 
time. The Olympia bent the blades of one of her 
propellers in the Suez. So we are running with 
one engine." 

He turned to the boy who is posted on the 
bridge. 

"Ascertain how much running on a single en- 
gine affects her steering," he said. 

"Three degrees, sir," was the quick reply. 

"How do you know?" with an accent on the 
"you." 

"I steered her, sir." 

"Thank you," said the Admiral, with a wink 
not intended for the boy. 

Jacky saluted and went to the other end of the 
bridge. With Jacky out of hearing the Admiral 
said : 

"He knows," with an accent on the "he." and 



172 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

that little toss of the head. "Was I right in my 
reply to the Archbishop of Manila?" 

This Jacky has charge of the signal flags. By 
his dialect he is from New York. He is a good 
example of What the American navy can do with 
a boy from the Bowery (where young men arc 
usually so smart that they are above discipline) 
in teaching him self-respect, self-reliance, respect 
for others, providing him with a good position 
and making him an honor to his country if he is 
taken when he is young. 

"The programme which the committee has in 
view has evidently been arranged with great care. 
And there are no banquets — no banquets," he 
continued. 

"And the suggestions? General Butterfield 
wants any which you care to make." 

"I have made none except that the seamen of 
the Olympia march ahead of the marines. Yes. 
I have another," as it came to him on the moment. 
"The band is not strong enough to march those 
five miles and play in the meantime. When ii 
reached Madison Square it would not have breath 
to play a tune. Yes, I would like to have the 
committee provide another band." 

He called Lieutenant Caldwell, his private sec- 



LEGHORN. I73 

retary, up to the bridge and dictated a letter to 
that effect at once. 

"The Marine Band might lead the seamen," it 
was suggested. 

"Yes, that would be first class," was the reply. 
"They deserve it after thirteen months in ManiU 
Bay." 

Nothing in the programme impressed him so 
much as the presence of the whole National Guard 
of New York. This seemed to bring him nearer 
than ever before to an understanding of how much 
his countrymen appreciate him. Even now he 
realizes it only in part. In all his remarks as 
well as in his manner he showed the great pleasure 
which it gives him to know that his service has 
been satisfactory to his employers; he showed a 
desire, as far as his strength would permit, to let 
his countrymen know that he is grateful for their 
welcome. 

Looking at him and his ship and thinking of 
what he is in the hearts of a nation, it is not 
surprising that he asks with a smile and that little 
toss of his head : 

"What more can I want than to be a full ad- 
miral in the United States navy?" 

Leghorn, August 18. 



CHAPTER XL 

LEGHORN. 

The Admiral has been ashore only twice during 
all his stay here. He went for a drive, and he 
accepted Mr. Ray's invitation to dinner. Mr. 
Ray is an exporter of oils. He met the Admiral 
when the Admiral was here as Captain of the 
Pensacola. That settled it. Anyone in the Medi- 
terranean who knew the Admiral as captain, lieu- 
tenant or ensign — particularly as ensign — has a 
place in his heart. He enjoyed himself very much 
at Mr. Ray's. There were no great formalities, but 
something to eat and pleasant conversation. When 
he went to drive it was with the Consul. The rest of 
the time he had his outings on the deck. From 
the Olympia the breakwater allowed you to sec 
only the smokestacks of the town; and from the 
town you could see only the masts of the Olympia. 
Her isolation did not keep the crowd away. In 
this, as in other instances, the good nature of the 
American was often taken to mean a mile by those 
who are not accustomed to an inch and know no 



LEGHORN. I75 

happy medium, only to find that even with us the 
line is drawn at a certain place. The captain of 
the tug which was taking visitors out to the Olym- 
pia at excursion rates, asked the Consul if all other 
craft could not be ordered away at certain hours 
so that he would lose no time in getting up 
to the gangway. If this favor had been granted 
he would probably have wanted the Admiral to 
receive all Leghorn in person at the gangway and 
tell them how the Battle of Manila Bay was won. 

Now when the flagship is open to all visitors a 
Jacky is kept on duty walking back and forth 
across the upper deck just forward of the sky- 
lights which open into the Admiral's cabin. A 
number of women were found with their heads 
through the skylights looking into the Admiral's 
private apartment one day. At another time a 
number of visitors burst in on the Admiral while 
he was at his desk. It was more awkward fot 
them than for the Admiral perhaps. The executive 
officer concluded that the Admiral's word to let all 
who so wished visit the flagship at certain hours 
did not imply that they were to see all the ship ; for 
example, that they were to pass through the quar- 
ters of the officers and look in at the open door of 
a "hero" who was off duty and sound asleep. 



I76 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

In the twilight if not in the dark as to who the 
Admiral was when he came, Leghorn was not 
slow to learn. The Admiral must bear on his 
broad shoulders the responsibility of the decay of 
any number of American flags in Naples before 
some other American cruiser comes to this port 
On the second day the keepers of the bathing pa- 
vilions, the cafes chantants and the "shows" along 
the waterfront critically examined the five or six 
American flags in the town and sent to the shops 
for red, white and blue bunting. Then they set 
their wives to work sewing the strips of bunting 
together, this in front of their places of busi- 
ness as a guarantee of good faith. The stripes 
were easy enough. But the stars? The stars 
were too many. According to some of the seam- 
stresses of Leghorn we are still a nation not of 
the original thirteen colonies, but of seven or eight 
States. Such abbreviation was necessary to haste. 
The flag must be over the door of the cafe at once ; 
you must make hay while the sun shines. So far 
as I can learn, Leghorn was strong in the belief — 
probably emanating from some report of the prize- 
money paid to the Jackies — that the Jackies had 
robbed the Spaniards whom they had butchered 
at Manila of millions in gold, which they were in 



LEGHORN. 177 

a hurry to spend. Leghorn regarded our seamen 
more or less as a spectator would have regarded 
so many Spanish swashbucklers who had sacked 
a town in the Low Countries. We are a very 
brutal people, no doubt, for we fight with our 
fists in personal encounters. The only unpleasant 
incident of the Olympia's visit here was a stab 
which one of our seamen received in the back. 
He was a man of excellent character aboard ship, 
and he was not drunk at the time of the occur- 
rence ; but he had refused to pay all the account 
which had been charged to him at a cafe. 

Good Consul Smith happened to be at a cafe one 
evening where four Jackies were dining. When 
the Jackies' bill was brought he asked them to let 
him see it, and they passed it over with the look 
of pleasurable surprise on their faces which might 
be expected from meeting one who spoke English. 
He enumerated each item on the bill, asking his 
fellow countrymen if they had had what was writ- 
ten against them. They said "no" or "•yes" read- 
ily. There were some mischarges. He called at- 
tention to them in a manner which left no room 
for argument; no room for gesticulation except an 
assenting shrug of the shoulders. Among the 
items was sixteen beefsteaks. 



178 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

"Did you have sixteen beefsteaks?" the Consul 
asked. 

"You bet," was the prompt reply. 

"How is that?" 

"Well," said the spokesman, "we're fed all 
right, aboard ship. No man ever goes hungry 
there — it's Uncle Sam's navy. Humph! Better'n 
any dago officers get! Ashore what you want is 
fresh meat. What you think of on the voyage is 
steaks, layin' 'em in with a shore appetite. We 
asked for steaks. They brought us what they call 
steaks. We sized the little things up, and con- 
cluded that enough of 'em on a pinch would go far 
enough. We pointed to 'em and held up three 
fingers. That guy, the waiter, thought we was 
mad. He wasn't going to order 'em. So we 
reached in our pockets and showed him the dough. 
That settled him. He knew we was lunatics, but 
lunatics with dough was all right. That's all we 
wanted, and we got it. Sure, a lot of trimmings 
came with it. We didn't care. We let the Span- 
iards have 'em and laid in the steaks." 

The Consul was convinced of their honesty if 
not of their diplomacy. To Jacky the merry-go- 
rounds, the menageries, wax works, song-and 
dance booths and the freaks along the beach con- 



LEGHORN. I7Q 

stituted a Coney Island which did not speak Eng- 
lish. What amused him most was the shooting 
galleries. The distance to the target was about 
five yards. I took notice of two marines who 
patronized one of these booths. They both hit 
the target again and again, and then — as I said, 
they are poor diplomatists — they laughed at the 
owner. 

"You do not play fair," said the owner. "You 
hit it every time. Ah, you would not have whipped 
the Spaniards if you had played fair." 

Many of the officers visited Pisa, and some went 
to P'lorence. Consul Smith was entirely at their 
service. Under the chaperonage of Mrs. Smith a 
number of young ladies went off to lunch on the 
flagship. Afterward, toward evening, there was 
dancing on the deck. The only disappointment 
was that the Chaplain, Father Rainey, refused all 
entreaties to put his head into the position it was 
in when the bursting of a shell just outside the 
port led to a sudden retreat. Possibly his modesty 
was due to the fact that, officially speaking, he 
had no business with his head sticking outside a 
port hole. His business was below ministering to 
the spiritual wants of the numerous wounded. 



l80 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

The Chaplain's excuse is that he wanted to se^ 
the fight. 

On the evening following the afternoon of the 
second dance on board, the leading cafe chantant 
had a gala night in honor of the presence of the 
Olympia. The American coat-of-arms was over 
the stage; and the walls were draped with our 
colors and decorated with flowers. Most of the 
officers, excepting the Admiral, were in the boxes. 
Fregolt, the man with the mobile countenance, 
who amused music hall audiences at home some 
time ago, made their coming well worth while. 
After the performance Mr. and Mrs. Smith gave 
a little reception at their house. 

All in all, dry-as-bones old Leghorn furnished 
the Admiral with as much rest and the officers 
with as much entertainment as either Naples or 
Trieste. At six p. m. precisely this evening her 
White Majesty moved toward the horizon en route 
for Villefranche, where she will arrive to-morrow 
morning. 

Leghorn ,August 23. 



CHAPTER XII. 

NICE. 

It is plain enough that the Admiral is in France. 
There is all the difference between the official re- 
ception here and in Italian ports that there is in 
the finish that a French and an Italian 
laundry puts on your shirts ; in the care 
which a Nice cabby takes of his cab and a Nea 
politan cabby does not take of his : in a French 
woman's and an Italian woman's way of holding 
her skirts. The Olympia came into the harbor of 
Yillefranche as jauntily as a French woman 
steps over a crossing, only, of course, she did not 
show quite so much of her shoes. She was re- 
ceived as gracefully as monsieur could offer hi> 
hand to any lady. The French may not think- 
that the Admiral won a great victory : their sym 
pathies in the late war may have been with Spain. 
A morning paper, in an account of the Admiral's 
deeds, says: "Our readers know that he is ce! 
ebrated for having destroyed with a modern squad- 
ron, well armed and armored, the poor wooden 



l82 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

ships of the Spaniards grouped under his cannon 
at Cavite." Possibly that is the general opinion of 
the French people. It does not matter this way 
nr that to anybody, unless to them, what they 
think. For. thanks to French punctiliousness, 
officers and men have had every favor they coui 1 
desire or expect, unless they were Russians. If 
they had been Russians they would have been 
hugged and kissed, so they are glad that they are 
not Russians. 

The Admiral said that he would be here at eight 
a. m.. and at just eight a. m. the Olympia was 
made fast to the buoy nearest the shore which 
Monsieur the Commissaire had reserved. If her 
position were any indication you might think- 
that Monsieur the Commissaire's politeness had 
prompted her to emerge from the exclusiveness 
which has kept her well out from the land hereto- 
fore. I am afraid that there is just a little affecta- 
tion in this eternal punctuality of Captain Lamber- 
ton. The deviation of a few minutes from schedule 
time would vary the monotony. 

Monsieur the Commissaire was at Villefranche 
at seven, ready to welcome the Admiral in the 
name of Yice-Admiral de la Jaille. Maritime Pre- 
fect of Toulon. He would have been an unhappy 



NICE. I83 

man if a full admiral had been compelled to wait 
an hour after his flagship anchored to receive this 
welcome. At six the Olympia was sighted from 
the signal station. A little later a yacht just com- 
ing out of the harbor dipped her colors to her. 
The Admiral had missed seeing the King of 
Greece in his Amphitrite, who was on his way to 
Trieste. If the King had not the satisfaction of 
seeing the Captain of the Pensacola, who so great- 
ly pleased him by his bearing, a full admiral 
as he had hoped, he could see the blue flag with 
four white stars which has floated from her masr 
since the President signed a certain act of Con- 
gress. As she came in between the two points at 
the entrance of the harbor, her bulk of white, under 
the sky of the Mediterranean and in the waters 
of the Mediterranean, giving her an appearance 
of more than her real size, she was a thing of 
power as well as beauty. She was magnificent. 
The officers on board the French men-of-war ap- 
preciated the picture which no vessel not white 
can present. Without the reputation of being an 
artistic nation, we, nevertheless, pay for the extra 
paint to make our men-of-war as white as the 
Republic. But we have not a reputation for econ- 
omy, and the French have. They paint their men- 



184 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

of- war in dingy tone which, in the reflection of 
the water, turns graceful lines into ugly ones. 
The nucleus of our modern navy, the White Squad- 
ron, was distinctive in its color. Now our whole 
navy is. If any other nation imitates us. we shall be 
in the mood of the man who thought he was to be 
alone in his sleeping compartment from Paris to 
Marseilles, and found that he had a companion. 

Rear Admiral Bienaime, Who commands the 
superior school of the navy, was in the harbor 
before the Admiral, having come here as a matter 
of respect to one holding the position of full ad- 
miral in the navy of a friendly power. His flag- 
ship, the Admiral Charner, and the Davoust and 
Friant were grouped around the vacant buoy 
which awiaited the coming of the distinguished 
guest. Villefranche has never received a full ad- 
miral before, as a matter of fact. There are none 
in the French navy now, and have been none since 
the Prince de Joinville. The Olympia was just 
opposite the batteries of Cap de Mt. Boron : in the 
next moment she was to fire the salute to the port 
— when the Admiral Charner without waiting on 
ceremony fired instead of the seventeen guns due 
a full admiral the nineteen guns due an admiral of 
the fleet. This was a fine piece of courtesy; a 



NICE. 185 

gracious recognition of the Admiral's high posi- 
tion. It might have heen expected from ally to 
ally ; from friendly nation to friendly nation it was 
almost without precedent. The initiative for it came 
from the Government in Paris. 

"America has no navy : she has no regular 
army," French officials said before the war. "She 
had a civil war of peasants and clerks carrying 
rifles. This must not lead her to think that she 
can make war with a martial nation. Ranchers 
and shopkeepers do not understand military 
science. Her guns are obsolete. There is no 
discipline on her men-of-war. They might fight 
American ships but not European. The end is 
not far to see." 

A Berlin! 

The journals of the gutter and the masses now 
say that the mighty with overwhelmingly superior 
force of arms, bore down upon the weak, robbing 
them of their property and butchering their sol 
diers. But the thinking men of France realize 
how impolitic they were in wasting their sympathy 
on Spain. To atone for this, tardily, they have 
made it a point to be polite to the Admiral. 

The Olympia, after saluting the port, returned 
the Admiral Charner's salute with nineteen guns, 



1 86 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

or as many as the Admiral received from her, ac- 
cording to custom. With the echo of her guns 
dying away while she was swinging up to 
the buoy, the strains of the Marsellaise 
burst from the band of the Olympia's after- 
deck. "I know your song. We have a song 
of freedom in America. Already I feel at home," 
the visitor seemed to say. 

That won the heart of every Frenchman in the 
harbor. The journalist who wrote the spiteful 
words that I have quoted must have instantly 
turned penitent, or he was no Gaul. The Admiral 
Charner responded by her bugles beating the call 
aux champs and manning the yards. It is a rainy 
day when a monsieur cannot be as polite as a 
mister. 

In ten minutes after the Olympia was at anchor 
Admiral Bienaime was on board to pay his official 
call. Admiral Dewey told him what a pleasure it 
was to visit a port which he associated with the 
most pleasant recollections ; and he drank a glass 
of champaigne with Admiral Bienaime. After Ad- 
miral Bienaime came Monsieur the Commissaire, 
in the propejr order and at the right moment, 
mounting the gangway with a step as light as 
that of the Admiral himself. He expressed to the 



NICE. 187 

Admiral the best wishes of the Maritime Prefect 
of Toulon. The Admiral said that he would send 
Captain Lamberton ashore on the following da) 
to return the call. 

At one o'clock, the hour agreed upon, the Ad- 
miral, in his barge, with Lieutenant Brumby 
accompanying him, was at the gangway of the 
Admiral Charner. 

Nice, August 24. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

NICE. 

Ambassador Porter being in Norway on his va- 
cation, Mr. Vignaud, who has grown gray and 
doctrinaire and more and more affable as Secretary 
of the Embassy in Paris, came to Nice to welcome 
the Admiral. He alighted at 2 45 p. m. from 
the Paris express on the afternoon of the Admi- 
ral's arrival. After he had washed off the dust of 
travel and eaten his luncheon at the hotel in Nice, he 
took the train for Villefranche and was on board 
the Olympia at 4:30 p. m. Mr. Piatti, the Vice- 
Consul, who was acting in place of Mr. Van 
Buren, the Consul, accompanied him. He had 
authority to offer the Admiral all the ambassador- 
ial hospitality which now may be said to be a pre- 
cedent. Still, authority, although given for use, 
may not always be used. The "Now don't" which 
the Admiral spoke to his fellow Vermonter at 
Leghorn, was understood. There was to be no 
oratorical request for the Admiral to describe in 
an impromptu speech how he won the battle of 



NICE. 189 

Manila. No attache was to take thirty minutes 
explaining why the Admiral ought to call on an 
emperor! Nobody at all was to try to grind the 
little axe of reclame — who has not one up his 
sleeve? — on the epaulettes bearing four stars! Mr. 
Vignaud did not even ask to have his name put in 
the papers. As I have said, he is old in the ser- 
vice. Ambassador Porter himself is not so very 
young. Both are just a little too old to believe in 
bon mots in bad weather as a means of restor- 
ing health. Mr. Vignaud said that it was quite 
unnecessary for the Admiral to return his call in- 
dividually. The style set in Naples did not ap- 
peal to him. He saw no reason why he should 
wait in sombre state upstairs in his room at the 
hotel for the Admiral to come. Are not we all 
good Americans in one great family? Mr. Vig 
naud, in his many years of service, has absorbed 
this great principle to the marrow of his bones. 
So he went over to the Consulate in the morning 
— over to the United States— and was there when 
the Admiral and Mr. Brumby in full dress drove 
up to the door. They had a little family chat. 
Then the Admiral and Mr. Brumby drove off to 
return the call of the Prefect. For you see Mr. 
Vignaud had come to Nice really to show the Ad- 



IQO GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

miral the respect Mr. Porter felt due to the return- 
ing victor of Manila, and to make a great man of his 
own country, seeking rest and recuperation, as 
comfortable as possible; that being what you call 
courtesy. Mr. Vignaud took the afternoon express 
for Paris. I find that most of our diplomatic and 
consular servants who are old in the service or 
are fitted to belong to a trained service, are act- 
uated in their relation toward their fellow country- 
men by that pure spirit of Americanism which actu- 
ates the head of another trained service, the navy. 
Without becoming guilty of an editorial, and at 
the same time giving vent to my feelings, I must 
say what a pity it is that we haven't a trained dip- 
lomatic service, because it would be the finest of 
trained diplomatic services ! It takes ten years of 
life abroad rightly to appreciate your own coun- 
try. If Ambassador Porter and Mr. Vignaud had 
thought a great dinner was the proper thing I 
have reason to believe that it would not have been 
managed badly. 

For the first time the Admiral here refused to 
see the local newspaper men. It is quite unlikely that 
an English admiral or a German admiral, holding 
the same high position, would have seen them 
at any port. There is good reason for the Adrni- 



nice. igr 

ral's change of front. He has fallen into the hands 
of that wonderful being, the Continental journal- 
ist. From all the information I can gain, men of 
great position in Europe do not see journalists be 
cause they do not want to be represented as mak- 
ing the most sensational utterances that could come 
from their lips as public characters. Without sec 
ing the Admiral the Continental journalist lias 
said that the Admiral had asked for an audience 
with the Pope and was going to Rome if he could 
get it; that he and eight of the officers of his staff 
— there are three officers on an American admi- 
ral's staff — were going to rush to Carlsbad as soon 
as they arrived at Trieste to be cured of a terrible 
disease — no specifications, the cafes not indulging 
in specifications — which was peculiar to the trop- 
ics ; that he was going — this correspondent did not 
think that the Admiral needed baths— straight to 
Hamburg and take a North German Lloyd steam 
er home; that the Admiral had said that he was 
suffering so much from nervousness on the day of 
the battle of Manila Bay that he deserved small 
credit for the victory. Each one of these reports 
was about as reasonable as one that President Mc- 
Kinley, in order to make himself King of Santa 



192 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

Domingo, was going to lead a party of filibusters in 
person. 

If the Continental journalist could imagine all 
these things without seeing the Admiral what 
could he not imagine when he actually saw him? 
What he did imagine after seeing the Admiral is 
almost enough to justify the attitude of the 
European celebrity toward the press. He made 
the man whose official letters prove him to be a 
diplomatist anything but a diplomatist. It must 
be admitted that the worst offender was an Am- 
erican trained in the Continental school of journal- 
ism. The Admiral was made to say publicly that 
our next war would be with a nation which is the 
ally of a nation the hospitality of whose port he 
was then enjoying. So important a pronounce- 
ment was not to be obtained by a newspaper cor- 
respondent sending in his card as such. He used 
one of the cards which did not describe his occu- 
pation — a kind of card which is most serviceable 
in the work of taking account of the private lives 
of notabilities at the different health resorts of 
Europe. In its apology this paper spoke of him as 
a dilletante correspondent. Such correspondents 
usually are dilletantes. They are doctors, lawyers, 
anything but journalists. They don't care to have 



NICE. [93 

their occupation known any more than certain 
other members of society do. The detective on 
the track of crime does not say that he is a detec- 
tive. This fellow had served his master for years 
as a dilletante correspondent. 

You might say to the Admiral : 

"They say that the Germans meant to interfere 
at Manila." 

"Yes, so they say," the Admiral will reply, in a 
manner of doubt. 

There you have the basis for a tremendous in- 
terview. As long as you have to get an interview 
it is soothing to the conscience to know that yon 
have met the Admiral, although that is not neces- 
sary. An interview can be made by using pen, 
ink and paper. There is no censorship. 

The Admiral was confronted upon his arrival 
here with inquiries about another supposed inter- 
view which appeared in a London paper. He 
could not recall having met anyone from this 
paper. Flag-Lieutenant Brumby and Secrctarv 
Caldwell, through whose hands all cards for the Ad- 
miral must pass, said that they had never seen the 
name of this paper on any card. Whereupon it 
was concluded that a temporary rule, reluctantly 
made, bv which Mr. Brumby was to see the jour- 



194 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

nalists in place of the Admiral, would answer pres- 
ent purposes. In Trieste he determined neither 
to affirm nor to deny anything that was printed 
about him, on the principle that if he did so once 
he would have to keep it up. 

In truth the Admiral has been brought face to 
face with the consequences of his great popularity 
since he arrived in Europe. He has found that 
whatever he says has such a weight as to tempt 
men to distort his slightest remark into one ot 
political importance. There is a growing fond- 
ness on board the Olympia for the little group of 
journalists who were in Manila. If they did not 
shine in their own time they shine now by com- 
parison. His censorship of their despatches was 
largely one of love. Only when the General, in 
the natural course of marking the line where the 
authority of the army ended and that of the navy 
began, seemed to presume a little upon the Admi- 
ral's good nature, and we wanted to publish the 
facts, he wouldn't allow it because of his be- 
lief for the sake of the cause that quarrels in the 
family should not pass beyond the ears of the 
family. 

That first smart comment of the French journal- 
ist on our inhumanity in destroying wooden ships 



NICE. 195 

was followed by others from the pens of gentle- 
men who had to write something in lieu of the in- 
terview which they had expected to get from the 
Admiral. Among the kindly things was this from 
the pen of one, who, from a glimpse of the Admi- 
ral, had, in a measure, fallen under his spell but 
could not escape national convictions any more 
than national style: 

"Nous nous trouvions a bord de l'Olympia 
lorsque l'amiral Dewey a quitte le croiseur pour 
se rendre aupres du contre-amiral Bienaime. II 
passa pres de nous, an milieu du respect attendri 
de ses matelots qui, en depit de leur variete de 
nationalites, professent pour lui une admiration 
sans bournes et un devoument absolu. 

"De taille moyenne, le corps bien pris en une 
elegante tunique, le bicorne a galons d'or fiere- 
ment campe sur ses cheveux saupoudres de neig-% 
Tamiral Dewey a vraiment fiere mine. L'allure 
cependant est plutot celle d'un fringant officier de 
cavalerie que celle d'un marin. La physionomie 
pleine et coloree dont une forte moustach - 
blanche, aux pointes relevees, avive le teint, decide 
l'energie, souligne l'audace du regard, net ei 
franc. 

"II y a une certaine bonhomie dans ce hanli 



I96 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

temperament et on la devine a l'affabilite sour- 
iante avec laquelle il interpelk ses ofBciers, a 
la simplicite de ses manieres, a sa parole qui revet 
parfois je ne sais quoi d'enjoue et d'aimable. J'ai 
pu voir ainsi, quelques instants, l'amiral aller e" 
venir sur le pont ; quant a ce,-qui est de l'inter- 
view que je me proposais de recueillir, ce fut autre 
chose. 

"A Naples, certains confreres ont denature sa 
pensee, l'ont campe dans une attitude qu'il n'a 
jamais ete dans son intention de prendre, et alors, 
dame... chat echaude craint l'eau froide. 

"L'amiral a beaucoup de sympathie pour la 
presse, mais Tinterview, avec ses consequences 
parfois inattendues, l'effarouche un peu." 

You might show a French journalist the proofs 
fifty times over that eighty per cent, of our seamen 
and marines were born in America, and he would 
still believe that they were all foreigners. He pro- 
tests if we tell him that his seamen keep the 
decks the color of cafe-au-lait, and do not like or 
respect their officers — because there is some truth 
in the assertion. We admit that all the men in the 
French navy were born in France. We protest 
that our seamen are not foreigners, because there 
is some truth in his assertion. He admits that 



NICE. [<)J 

they are a homogeneous crew who love their ad- 
miral. 

We are satisfied. 

Whatever the French journalist thought mat- 
tered little to the officers, as long as no French of- 
ficial prevented their riding in a carriage or on a 
railroad train wherever they pleased and testing all 
the table d'hote dinners on the Riviera. Some of 
them were off the ship before noon on their way to 
Nice, which is fifteen minutes' ride, or to Monte Car- 
lo, which is thirty minutes' ride. Everybody, even the 
Admiral, saw Monte Carlo. Many put a small 
sum on the tables to say that they had gamble i 
at the greatest gaming place in the world : and 
then saw it swept off into the pockets of the Prince 
of Monaco by a croupier. The principle of some 
of the officers, as with the Admiral, was so sti 
that they would not make the single exception t i 
their rules of life. In all, perhaps the Prince 
as much as five hundred francs of the Olympiad 
salaries. 

There was more healthful recreation; more 
quiet entertainment. Dr. Percy, who has the re 
sponsibility of delivering a well admiral over to his 
charge. Paymaster Smith is one of the officer^ of 
countrvmen, does not forget the others under his 



I98 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

the wardroom, whose rations still go against him. 
Manila was a hard experience for a man of his 
years. The doctor prescribed for him on Wednes- 
day a drive over the Corniche Road in the com- 
pany of his physician. They lunched at Nice, Dr. 
Percy being a little vexed because the table d'hote 
was not the right kind of fare for a man with a 
Manila stomach, but the paymaster told the doc- 
tor to go on with his own dinner and stop worry- 
ing. For himself, he would eat what was set be- 
fore him ; take things as they came. The drive did 
the paymaster a great deal of good ; and the doc- 
tor was accordingly jubilant. 

Father Rainey enjoyed Villefranche the most. 
He received a telegram from Rome that he had 
been granted an audience with the Pope and he 
was tripping down the gangway ten minutes later 
with a traveling bag in hand. When he went from 
Naples to Rome, an audience was not possible. 
The Chaplain had given up the idea of getting one 
at all, when along came the telegram, setting one 
young priest up in the seventh heaven of delight 
in a second. But no sooner had he returned from 
Rome than the Chaplain started off to "do" Paris. 
He is the greatest junketer on the ship, as he can 
afford to be. He has no duty on watch. Mr. 



NICE. 199 

Capps is also in the relative position of a passen- 
ger, but not quite so much of a junketer as the 
Chaplain. He has been employed in the rehabil- 
itation of the Isla de Cuba, Isla de Luzon and Don 
Juan de Austria in the dry-docks of Hong Kong. 
With the work well under way, Mr. Hobson ha* 
taken his place ; and he is now going home on the 
Olympia. 

At this, the hot season of the year, only the old 
habitues, who cannot leave the place as long as 
they possess a ten-franc piece, are to be seen at 
Monte Carlo. Most of them have systems of their 
own device whereby they hope to "break the bank" 
— that is, put one of the tables out of play. When 
they lose they withdraw to a corner to see what is 
wrong with their systems. Meanwhile, the snul • 
of the croupier is one of set politeness. When the 
smile degenerates into a sneer at the corners of his 
mouth over human folly he is superannuated. 

Whether it is summer or winter the grounds of 
Monte Carlo are beautiful. They were the attrac- 
tion which led the Admiral to visit the Principal- 
ity. He went for a drive with Mr. Brumby that 
afternoon and they brought up at Monte Car!-. 
where they dined at the restaurant of the Hotel d> 
Paris. Here the Admiral unexpectedly met some 



200 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

friends who joined them, making a happy part). 
After dinner they went over to the Casino and 
were in the gaming halls for a moment. The Ad- 
miral did not take the trouble to look around. His 
expression seemed to say: "So that is it?" and 
then he walked out into the fresh air. 

On another afternoon the Admiral went for a 
drive with Vice-Consul Piatti along the famous 
Corniche Road, built by Napoleon I., the greatest 
of road builders, which winds up the mountain- 
until the coast of the Riviera becomes a panorama 
at your feet. When he was here before the cab- 
man, who did not want to drive his horses any far- 
ther up hill than he had to, took him only as far 
as the grotto and told him that was all, when it was 
really less than half. The Vice-Consul had pro- 
cured a fleet pair of horses and the cabman under- 
stood that he was expected to drive to the highest 
point of the road, where the panorama reaches its 
climax. Again and again the Admiral expressed his 
obligations to the Vice-Consul for his kindness, 
while Mr. Piatti could only reply that the kindness 
was all on the Admiral's side. Everything of any in- 
terest at all along the route seemed to interest the 
Admiral. He had a word for the French boys and 
girls and a word for most of the villas they passed. 



NICE. 20 1 

The Vice-Consul, who is one of the Queen's House- 
hold when she is here in winter, showed him the 
Queen's apartments and he asked more question 
about them, as he did about many other things, 
than Mr. Piatti could answer. 

"He owns me," said the Consul. "I can't say 
that I have ever met a great man with a more 
charming personality. With him in command I feel 
as if I could fight one of the guns of the Olympia 
myself." 

It was unreasonable of the French Government 
to build a waiting booth between the railway track 
and the bay at Villefranche, thus shutting out a 
view of the Olympia from the trains. The faces 
of all the passengers in a compartment were at the 
door to get a glimpse for a moment as the train 
pulled into the station before the booth shut her 
out of sight, and another glimpse as the train 
pulled out, before it passed in to one of the numer- 
ous tunnels on the Riviera which help to make 
carriage riding popular. The flagship was open 
at certain hours every day to visitors, as it has been 
at the other ports in the Mediterranean. Sunday, 
the day of fetes for the French, was made a day 
for seeing the Olympia by the populace of the vi- 
cinity. Thev went off in the little boats, tor hire 



202 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

at the quay, which is so near the Olympia's buoy 
that this time the flagship did not lower one of her 
launches. All the afternoon and most of the 
morning a stream of newcomers was going up 
the port gangway and a stream of those who had 
seen all that it is permitted to see went down the 
starboard gangway. There were fat cafe keepers: 
mother and father and daughters out for a change 
from the shop; young Frenchmen with their mis- 
tresses ; younger officers of the army and navy ; 
and the slouchy little French soldier, smoking his 
cigarette — a typical French crowd. Their chief 
remark about the Olympia related to her clean 1 i- 
ness. Whether or not they considered that an ob- 
jection they did not say. But they were a very 
well mannered crowd as French crowds usuall; 
are, except when they are making a political dem- 
onstration. The Olympia has no seamen or mar- 
ines of French birth, therefore the crowd had tn 
do without explanations. In Trieste we had a sea- 
man who spoke German and in Naples one who 
spoke Italian, to open and close the breeches of the 
guns and show how the shots that helped to 
win the battle of Manila Bay were fired. They got 
a little tired of their bargain in the end. 

The Admiral came up on deck for a moment 



NICE. 203 

with "Bob" at his heels. Two little girls holding 
hands were standing beside their mother at the 
edge of the forbidden ground. "Bob" walked up 
to them and began sniffing. He was quite differ- 
ent from a French poodle. They had never seen 
such a dog before and they were somewhat fright- 
ened. The good mother, herself, was too much 
interested in looking at the Admiral to pay atten- 
tion to her offspring. 

"He won't hurt you, little ones," said the Admi- 
ral, bending over to them. "He is very gentle." 

When he had succeeded in reassuring the little 
girls and in making them smile and all but reach 
out to put their hands into "Bob's" soft fur. their 
playfellow went from them as suddenly as he had 
come. He happened to look up and see that he 
had an increasing audience, which contained a 
number of snapshot camera fiends, and he heat a 
retreat to the after-deck. 

The Admiral has been in fine humor during hi- 
stay here. On Tuesday he remained aboard all 
day, coming up on the upper deck a number of 
times. 

He asked of the apprentice, Allen— "Boy \1 
len" as he is known aboard ship, a fine, clean look- 
ing youngster : 



204 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

"Did you go to Monte Carlo?" 
"No, sir," was the reply. 
"Why not?" the Admiral asked. 
"Did not have money enough, sir." 
"You poor boy !" he said in a semi-serious tone 
"But didn't you have a good time ashore?" 
"Yes, sir." 
"That was right." 

On Wednesday afternoon Consul Fletcher of 
Genoa called. Ever since the Admiral announced 
the plan of his homeward voyage Mr. Fletcher had 
been living against the hour when the Olympia 
should anchor in the bay of Genoa. Up to the 
last moment his hopes were high. When he heard 
three or four days before the Olympia left Leghorn 
that she was going to pass by Genoa and make 
her next stop at Villefranche he was as unhappy 
as the lonely Consul on the rock at Aden. But hi 
had some redress and the Consul at Aden had none. 
It is only a few hours' run along the kalian 
and the French Riviera from Genoa to Ville- 
franche. As if he meant to atone for the disap- 
pointment which he had caused the Consul the Ad- 
miral showed him all about the flagship, something 
he rarely does in person, however distinguished his 
guests may be. They happened to be on deck 



NICE. 205 

when the colors were lowered. It was an impres 
sive scene as the Admiral, stopping in the midst 
of an explanation at the call, in common with 
every officer and man on board, faced toward the 
stern and stood motionless with eyes reverently 
fixed on the flag. 

After their first visit to Nice many of the sea- 
men and marines did not take advantage of their 
shore leave. The quay, with the cafes patronized 
by the boatmen and fishermen, was not attractive 
by day when it was cooler aboard ship. 

"You can't get anywhere without taking a 
train," said one, "and you don't know when the 
trains go. When you do get anywhere, nobody 
speags English. About all we can make the cafe- 
understand is beer. Most of us spent too much 
money in Leghorn to have any left for carriages 
and it's beneath the dignity of the crew of the 
Olympia to go ashore and not ride in carriage--." 

Besides most of them got enough exercise upon 
the parade ground at Villefranche. The French 
authorities kindly gave us the use of this parade 
ground in order to drill the landing battalion a little, 
preparatory for the great parade in New York. 
Inasmuch as there is to be nothing impromptu 
about the arrangements for the reception. th< 



206 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

ficers of the Olympia concluded to have the men 
know their parts as well as the reception committee. 
Many of the Olympia's crew were transferred from 
the other members of the Admiral's squadron 
which fought on the first of May. As a matter 
of fact they had never been drilled together. 
Thirteen months of sea legs is not favorable to 
movements on land. The Jackies might pardon- 
ably slouch down Broadway out of line ; not the 
marines, who are the soldiers and the guardians 
of order on our men-of-war. They are expected 
to be erect and never to "roll" when they walk. 
"But you cannot drill men on a deck or on a 
three-cent piece," said Major Berryman of the 
marines. "There's no telling what we will look 
like, if we are taken right off the ship and put on 
the pavement." 

On three different mornings the battalion has 
been ashore. They come off to the quay in two 
instalments on the launch and the two boats in 
tow of the launch. While the launch and the 
boats went for the rest, the first arrivals waited on 
the quay for their coming. As it marched up the 
winding road to the parade ground the battalion 
gave that impression of solidity and force, in con- 
tradistinction with what you see in France, which 





SAILORS AND MARINES DRII.I.IN'; AT VILLEFR 

THE PARADE IN NEW VOKK CIT^ 



NICE. 207 

is usually supposed to go with beefsteaks. The 
marines and the Jackies were both in white, with 
the neat kharkee leggings which distinguish 
both our army and navy. A few small boys led 
the procession with hand springs. Beyond that 
the battalion attracted little attention, and no 
cheers you may be sure. I observed some French 
officers, rather hidden by the trees, looking on at 
the drill. 

On the first morning our officers were a little 
discouraged. They never worked harder in their 
lives. There was scarcely a man in any company 
who did not receive some personal direction from 
the lieutenant in charge. The tunics of the officers 
and the shirts of the men were soon sticking fast 
to their backs with perspiration, for the day was 
extremely hot. Only the executive officer, Mr. 
Colvocoresses, and the bugler and the color 
bearers, who were standing under the shade of 
the trees fringing the parade ground, escaped the 
sun. Mr. Colvocoresses did not escape the re- 
sponsibility for the whole which rested upon his 
shoulders. (When I wanted to make a photo- 
graph of Nokes, the only color bearer who had his 
flag, he said that each of the four companies ha 1 



208 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

a color bearer, and they ought all to be in it, not 
just one alone. I mention the incident in paren- 
thesis, to illustrate the spirit which prevails on 
the Olympia.) 

On the second morning, the officers' feet were 
a little sorer than they were on the first but they were 
relieved. On the third morning their feet were so 
sore that they wanted to limp, although, you may 
be sure that they did not, but they were happy. 
The seamen and the marines had thought over the 
errors they had made on the first morning and 
how to remedy them during the following night, 
and on the next night had done the same. That was 
characteristic of the American soldier and sailor. As 
a result their improvement was almost incredible. 
Their drill on the third morning was an honor to 
their country. I think that I am justified in saying 
that they will get enough cheers, when they march 
down Broadway, to pay them for their trouble. 

There remains now only Gibraltar — "They 
speak English there" we all say in speaking of 
it — and then the run to New York. As I spoke 
with the officers in the ward room just before the 
Olympia started this afternoon I could see that 
now that thev are well — and the Admiral is well 



NICE. 20Q 

— they are a little homesick. Sonic of them hav: 
been as long as two years away from wives, 
sweethearts and families. 
Nice, August 31. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GIBRALTAR. 

Admiral Dewey returned from his hotel to the 
Olympia yesterday afternoon. Unless the entirely 
unexpected happens, he will next set foot ashore in 
the United States among his own people. 

While he was at the hotel I sought a statement 
of his views of what should be the policy of the 
United States in the Philippines. I told him 
frankly that I was going to publish what he said, 
with his permission. 

"I've little to say," he said, "until the recom- 
mendations of the commission, of which I am a 
member, are laid before President McKinley." 

''Did you read what Mr. Schurman, one of the 
commissioners, had to say upon his return from 
the Philippines?" 

"As he is quoted in the newspapers he definitely 
explains my position. I quite agree with what 
Mr. Schurman says. Indeed, I attach great im- 
portance to his opinions. He is an able and high- 
minded man, whose intelligence and conscien- 



GIBRALTAR. 2 I I 

tious devotion to the task assigned him won im 
admiration. We were invariably in accord." 

Admiral Dewey has never expressed regret thai 
he asked to be made one of the Philippine Com- 
missioners. On the other hand, he has said that 
he is glad that he was a member of the commis- 
sion, and his greatest desire now is to put its 
report in the hands of the President as soon as 
possible. 

"You may add this," the Admiral said with 
great earnestness. "I have not changed my opin- 
ion which I stated in the early days at Manila, then 
speaking with a knowledge of both peoples, tha. 
I consider the Filipinos more capable of self-gov- 
ernment than the Cubans. I took the keenesl 
interest in those Filipinos who were employed al 
the arsenal in Cavite, and often I was surprised 
at their intelligence. With fair and properly di 
rected opportunities there are great possibilities 
in the Filipinos." 

The Admiral feels it his duty to refuse the in 
vitations that have been extended to him t 
Chicago and the West. After his reception in 
Washington he will go to Montpelier. 

"J cannot disappoint the people of my native 



212 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

town and State," he said. "They are very dear 
to me." 

From Montpelier the Admiral expects to re- 
turn to Washington for the sessions of the Philip- 
pine Commission. 

"I do not know," he said, "if Colonel Denby will 
return by that time. If he has returned, I hope 
to meet both him and Mr. Schurman in Washing- 
ton. Of course, General Otis cannot leave the Phil- 
ippines, and I see that Professor Dean Worcester is 
still in the islands. However, there may be three of 
us, and, as we are in accord, there should be little 
difficulty in making our formal report. I hope 
we can get to work at once and keep at it until 
our task is finished. Anyhow, Schurman and my- 
self can put our heads together." 

I mentioned to the Admiral what was upper- 
most in the minds of many men who were at Ma- 
nila — what his officers believe — that had he been 
given full powers as a governor-general there 
would have been no rebellion. 

The Admiral raised his eyebrows at this as one 
who gets information for the first time. He was 
absolutely startled. 

From what I have learned from conversations 
with him and from those around him, I conclude 



GIBRALTAR. 2 I 3 

that he will never accept the nomination for th? 
Presidency. The limit in height of his political 
ambition is to place, at the proper time, befon 
the President and the country, the judgment lie 
has formed and the information he possesses con- 
cerning the Philippines. His only desire is to 
assist the Administration in solving the problem? 
that confront it. Admiral Dewey has thought 
deeply on this subject during his voyage. At 
Singapore he gathered much information concern- 
ing the methods that England uses in governing 
the Malay States. 

Inasmuch as it was Mr. McKinley's personal 
desire to assign the Admiral to the command of 
the Asiatic station, Dewey has the kindliest feel- 
ings toward the President. Moreover, it is gen- 
erally understood by those close to the Admiral 
that he hopes that Mr. McKinley will be re- 
elected. 

After the conversation with him that I have 
quoted, the Admiral, with that kindliness and con- 
sideration that are characteristic of him. said to 

me: 

"You know, my boy, if I were going to give the 
opinion that you ask to anyone, I would surely 
give it to you; for you have never made me 



214 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

things that never even crossed my mind." 

So the Olympia started for home. There is no 
gainsaying that everybody aboard her is intensely 
happy. The Admiral early appeared on the after- 
deck, and a little while later on the bridge, wheie 
he watched the final preparations for departure. 

As always, Mr. Colvocoresses, the executive 
officer of the Olympia, was a strict disciplinarian, 
but happy, like the rest, in starting for home, 
he gave his orders to-day good-naturedly. 

"So you are going home to-day?" he said to me. 

In the next instant he bellowed to his orderly : 

"Tell the men aboard that pilot boat not to put 
their hooks on the brass rail of the after-deck." 

Then, smiling, he continued to me: "For a 
fortnight this will be no place for an idle man. 
The Admiral would be broken-hearted if he did 
not arrive in New York Bay on the night he has 
fixed upon. At any minute of the voyage I must 
be prepared to give him every detail about the 
currents, about the winds, about anything he may 
ask of." 

I have had talks with the Admiral sitting in his 
little room at the hotel at Gibraltar in which his 
expressions showed the same simplicity which won 
the heart of the Spanish landlord who was his 



GIBRALTAR. j I - 

host, of the Spanish waiters who attended him. 
and of the Spanish children who played at his 
knees. 

"I can accept so few invitations!" he exclaimed 
to-day. "But I would like to accept every one of 
them, to show my appreciation. I have just re 
ceived a cablegram from Three Oaks, a town in 
Michigan, which asked me to go there if I should 
go to Chicago. Three Oaks won the gun from the 
Spanish fleet which Captain Hooker offered to the 
town that would subscribe the most money for it 
in proportion to population. Xow, T ask the good 
and loyal people of Three Oaks if they think f 
could ever show my face in my native town if 
I went to Chicago before going to Montpelicr?" 

Lately, the Admiral received a copy of the Naval 
Institute, with an article by Navigator Caulkins 
on the battle at Manila, in which Mr. Caulkins 
states that no submarine mines were exploded 
there, that only one torpedo-boat was sighted 
when the fleet entered the bay, and that Xavi- I 
Caulkins himself did not sec either the explo 
torpedoes or the torpedo-boat. 

Commenting on this article. Admiral Dewey 
said: 

"I myself saw the mines in the bay explode, and 



2l6 GEORGE DEWEY, ADMIRAL. 

I saw the torpedo-boat which we disabled. Captain 
Lamberton saw the other torpedo-boat, which was 
first reported by Apprentice Allen, who was set on 
the lookout by Commander Colvocoresses to re- 
port anything he saw. After our fire was directed 
on this torpedo-boat she sank. I have asked that 
my report, for the sake of accuracy, be also printed 
in the Naval Institute." 

The Admiral has also spoken to me about a 
declaration by a Southern American minister that 
was sent to him. It seems to represent to the 
Admiral a certain erroneous impression that ap- 
pears to prevail in America. The preacher said 
that for his action in Manila Bay that May morn- 
ing Dewey should have first been reduced to the 
ranks and instantly made a full admiral. 

"As if we did not know what we were doing!'' 
Dewey exclaimed, reading this. "There were 
many mines in the bay. We afterward learned 
why they did not explode, and the information 
was in accord with what we had learned before 
we entered the bay. The happiest moment of my 
life was when I learned that the Spanish squadron 
was not in Subig Bay but in Manila Bay. The 
Spaniards made very poor use of their opportu- 
nity." 



GIBRALTAR. 217 

The Admiral insists that both Captain Lamber- 
ton and Lieutenant Brumby accompany him to 
Washington. 

Mr. Brumby, with gallant forethought, has asked 
a committee from Georgia that is to present tc 
him a sword from the State not to come to New 
York. 

"This reception." said Mr. Brumby, "is For 
Dewey and nobody else." 

I suggested to the Admiral once that theic 
should be a dry dock at Manila. 

"We certainly cannot keep on going to Hong 
Kong for a dry dock," he said. "And we must 
have a dock at Manila if we are going to main- 
tain the Philippines." 

The Admiral expressed to me his gratification 
at the report that Major-General Miles will be 
sent to command the troops in the Philippines. 

Gibraltar, September 10. 



stf 



25 



\B99 






* 



ggorgc uewey 

ADMIRAL 




By FReDfiRICK PALi^GR 



